Sensory Utopia: Between Nearness and Distance

Korean multidisciplinary artist Kajin Kim's solo exhibition, <Sensory Utopia: Between Nearness and Distance (感官烏托邦: 遠近之間)>, will be held from November 2 to December 7 at The Stroll Gallery by Stella A&C. Throughout her career, Kajin Kim has explored the complexities and dualities of the human desire for connection in contemporary life, mediated and decontextualized by the internet and media technologies. 

The artist notes that while technological advancements have facilitated more convenient and unconstrained interpersonal connections, they have also led to extreme separation and disconnection in our direct, physical interactions. For Kim, this human deficiency translates into a longing for “shared boundaries” – a deep yearning for “contact”. The skin membrane then emerges as a boundary dividing the interior and exterior of the body, as well as a device representing the scope of the self.  

To express this idea of contact, Kajin Kim transforms it into visual and spatial forms. She casts organic-looking images surrounded by membranes in translucent silicone or transfers them onto resin surfaces, installs them on thermoformed transparent acrylic. The light designed to penetrate these transparent surfaces creates and connects the dual spaces of the interior and exterior, penetrating and connecting to form a new sense of space. 

Yet, despite the distinct imagery of this contact, an unbridgeable sense of distance lingers. Within these entangled forms, connections and disconnections happen simultaneously. The subjects may touch yet fail to engage with one another; they may reach out but seem unable to truly connect. Through images that evoke a sense of overlapping rather than genuine connection, the artist reveals a poignant sense of loneliness and longing, reflecting a modern society where the rise of digital networks paradoxically leads to a lack of real contact and meaningful relationships. Instead, we are left with illusory fragments of relationships that lack reciprocity. 

The term "Utopia," first introduced in Thomas More's 1516 novel, carries two meanings: "a good place" or "ideal place" and "a place that does not exist." This duality suggests that the ideal society we envision is ultimately unattainable, highlighting the complexities of human society that make such ideals elusive, despite our inherent desire to pursue them. 

This exhibition <Sensory Utopia: Between Nearness and Distance> marks Kajin Kim's first solo show in Hong Kong, capturing the desire for connection among individuals in contemporary society and the various movements that arise at the interface of fulfilling this desire. Visitors are invited to experience a new emotional connection through the artist's carefully crafted visual experience, encouraging them to reflect on the essence of human contact in a world increasingly mediated by technology, ultimately seeking answers to existential questions. 

Kajin Kim (b.1993)

Kajin Kim is a Korean multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Seoul, Korea. She utilizes printed matter, moving image and installation to explore the complexities of mediation in the contemporary experience of physical disembodiment in our ever-changing society, especially in terms of the internet and media inundation. Disparate projections, transparent materials, iridescent surfaces and screens resonate with each other in her installations, creating an environment where images are touched, reflected, and looked through. Her work is a rumination on how, both in virtual and physical space, we as humans yearn for connection and intimacies without always being able to find it.