I investigate the process of mutation and evolution undertaken by diverse organisms in order to adapt to their current surroundings. This process reflects my own evolving identity through the continuous interactions between myself and the current culture and society I live in. The structure of my identity remains open – it is always in a process of “becoming.”
My current work is a natural extension of previous projects centered around the body as a metaphor for certainty, hybridity, and the evolution of cultural identity in time of precarity. As the Korean American I now look inward to the triple-helix structure of DNA in recent projects. In 2017, I conducted extensive research regarding my own DNA via National Geographic’s Ancestry DNA kit, Geno 2.0. with Helix, both to explore personal ancestry and gene-based therapies. In these results which allowed for a more direct investigation of the nomadic past and research into human evolution based on migration, I traced the migration of my ancestors to Northeastern Asia.
As DNA test technology does not identify one’s cultural or artistic aspects, and tells nothing of the influences acquired in a global landscape, my current project makes visible a present and future of identity by complicating DNA as an identifier and connector rooted in art historically driven imaginaries — a cultural evolution.