Experiencing Estrangement
Research | A Multifaceted (Korean American) Story
Research | A Multifaceted (Korean American) Story
New Haven, USA
Various hyphenated Americans live with the feeling of estrangement. As we fit neither here nor there, we become lost in our understanding of where our space is and what it is. What’s important is not defining what a “Korean American” is, as this encourages estrangement, but rather how we can understand hyphenated cultures, such as that of the Korean American. The following research and its investigations focuses on understanding culture as a multifaceted byproduct of a much larger system rather than a singular definition. Therefore, the research moves away from a binary understanding of this or that, to a spectrum understanding of cultures creating multiplicities.
As the hyphenated culture is created in the liminal space, limen is used as a ground to explore estrangement. The design research investigates “limen” and its relationship to “estrangement” from a personal perspective, collective perspective, and experiential perspective. In parallel to this way of seeing, the project begins to expand its expression from a planar investigation, to an object investigation, and finally to a spatial investigation. These experiments always deal with the relation to the physical body and are logged through the act of collecting, the act of making, and the act of doing.
Liminal Plane
Liminal Plane is a personal understanding of the limen and the hyphenated cultural identity. It starts with a reflection on how and why I see certain things as Korean or American in contrast to why others may see certain things as the opposite.
Liminal Plane is a personal understanding of the limen and the hyphenated cultural identity. It starts with a reflection on how and why I see certain things as Korean or American in contrast to why others may see certain things as the opposite.
Liminal Tool
“Liminal Tool” creates a multifaceted understanding of liminal identity. It creates an apparatus in which a multifaceted understanding is produced by the multiplicity of people coming into contact with it. If the “Liminal Plane” was focused on creating a singular system with the suggestion to multiple varying outcomes, then the “Liminal Tool” focuses on creating multiple systems palimpsest into a singular object, shifting from a singular rule-bound system to a multi-layered system dependent upon interaction. The “Liminal Tool,” though a singular object, allows for multiple threads of interpretation or reading of the object, dependent on user perception and connection.
Liminal Space
Liminal Space deconstructs aspects of the liminal tool and reflects upon the liminal identity to create a space that is inspired from and by estrangement. It highlights the aspect of the limen, as the interior space created by the piece is stemmed from the perspective of a hyphenated culture. It exaggerates the iconographical qualities of two cultures onto two separate sides. The front facade becomes a collage of American-ness and the rear side becomes a collage of Korean-ness. Both the tools of abstraction and exaggeration are used to create an ambiguous but alluded space that does not identify distinctive American nor Korean icons. Abstraction is used as a tool and inclusive act to open the conversation to more people rather than confine the reading of liminal space to a specific cultured people.
When observing the two separate sides independent of each other, the sides can be interpreted as plane A and plane B. However, this project, in its attempt to make a liminal spatial experience, creates a physical experience and views through which one plane is never devoid of the other.