Kyungah Ham

Kyungah Ham (Seoul, South Korea, 1966) lives and works in Seoul. Kyungah Ham’s sculptures, videos and embroidered works delve into the realm of the socio-political – questioning the labour, politics, nationhood, social identity and freedom of information in her native Korea. She explores her nation’s history as a provocateur, subtly building layers of meaning with each step in her process to kindle an enduring political discourse. Her embroidered works embody an approach initiated by Ham in 2008. Here, she collects information available in South Korea – ranging from images of Western abstract paintings to South Korean slang – and, through an intermediary, sends them as a blueprint to be embroidered in North Korea. Through the works, she extends the offer of authorship to the embroiderers, as they must occasionally alter the works due to censorship. On the surface, the works are luminous and poetic, but the real material lies in the process of information and communication within.
She received her BFA from the Seoul National University and MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. She has participated in exhibitions in South Korea and internationally, including at the Kunstmuseum Bonn; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Charlottenborg Exhibition Hall, Copenhagen and the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna. Her work can be found in numerous public collections, among them, Victoria and Albert Museum; The Leeum; Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; MMCA – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and the Seoul Museum of Art.