Yeonwoo Chang
Yeonwoo Chang is an artist based in Dresden, Vienna and Seoul. In her artistic practice she deals with physical and spiritual issues that transcend history, craft, culture and nature. Her recent works show the political context of craft through ceramics.
Ceramics becomes a medium that reflects themes of natural resources, postcolonialism and craft that lead to a discourse of local art and contemporary art in a non-Western context. The Moon Jar project was born out of the impulse to live up to the moniker of a specific type of late 17th century Korean ceramic vessel from the Joseon Dynasty. It is two symmetrical hemispheres smoothly joined at their centre. During the period of Japanese colonialism, this pottery was exported abroad, thus influencing the shape of European ceramics. The specificity of Yenwoo Chang's object is the fact that the glaze of her object is composed of carefully prepared synthetic moon dust. The exhibition project addresses various aspects of the moon as a natural satellite of the Earth, but also as a source of possible territorial acquisition and cultural symbol. The utopian colonization of the lunar surface is contrasted with the pointing out of the symbolic and economic value of artistic artefacts in international museums and the postcolonial debates that accompany them. Beyond these discourses, the material of the ceramic vessel remains clay and its basal character in debates on climate issues.
