16mm, color, 2min., ongoing project
The ongoing project YOJI, which began with 16mm analog film, seeks to recreate a childhood traumatic memory—witnessing a woman slowly walk into the sea, as if intending to take her own life. Since then, I have been drawn to exploring anxieties surrounding human mortality and the complex relationship between the female body and water.
'요지 YOJI’ (瑤池), in ancient Chinese mythology, is the name of a fantasy lake located between the world of mortals and immortals, owned by the great goddess of life and death, Seo-Wang-mo(西王母, Xi-wang-mu). Water has, throughout various culture and literature, often symbolized purification, reverie, the passage to death, and feminine nature. Humans born from the water created by the female body eventually flow into the water through the ground. Was it the woman who is going into the water, or the water encroached upon her?
