We were lucky to catch up with Sung Eun Park recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sung Eun, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Rather than deliberately thinking that I should become an artist, I think it came naturally to me. I have always enjoyed drawing since childhood. I was born as an only child and spent a lot of time alone. I particularly liked to draw houses when I was little. Whenever I visited someone’s house with my mother, I would always sketch their space. I was fascinated by not necessarily the architecture or outside structure, but the interior and living space with the absence of figures or even the stairs leading up to the house. I’ve forgotten those memories back then, but looking at the imagery of my recent work, I remembered the moment of capturing the scene.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I currently live and work in Radford, Virginia. I started a new job last fall: I am a Foundations Coordinator & Sculpture at Radford University. As I’ve been teaching at one of the small-sized liberal arts colleges located in a small town in Oregon for the past 10 years, I’ve built not only my teaching experience but also my own method of interacting with a diverse student body, such as one-on-one mentoring practices that engage students more on a personal level. I find the work the department does at Radford University to be refreshing and given the opportunity, I would gladly continue to put my expertise as both an educator and an artist here. There is also the advantage of being able to use time more efficiently in balancing between teaching and doing my own work because the two working places overlap.

The environment nourishes the work I create and the work energizes me, living here allows me to meditate on the process and system for my future work. It is not a glamorous city life, but the terrain is beautiful, and people here are much more relaxed. In such an environment, I find time to fully focus on myself. It is time to think more deeply about the direction of work or the refinement of ideas through various trials and experiences.

I have been working on the same topic for the past 6 years, but the beginning and process of each project are not always the same. Once a title or theme is chosen, either the overall structure is designed using the narrative, and the details are determined accordingly or a significant object is identified first, and starting from it, an overall structure is created using a narrative and collected images that fit the topic. Since the most important thing is to convey the idea of the work, the story always serves as an important medium. The premise structure or image is made up of narratives and many sketches.

I want to create an exuberant and more dynamic image by inserting or incorporating new technologies, such as moving images or mechanical objects. For now, I am planning to focus on improving my practical skills. I have honed them to make them my own tools and am searching for engineers or writers who can collaborate on the technical side.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I have been exploring the phenomena of life and death for the past few years. My current body of work responds to human attitudes towards death such as the value of death, funeral culture, and postmortem traditions and relationships. At times, funerals can seem like a circus- strange, elaborate, and surreal. The COVID-19 pandemic has renewed interest in researching the end of our life’s journey. How do we answer the question “What is good death?” The situation we find ourselves in demands a reexamination of our understanding of death. Given that life and death are inseparable and are to be viewed as the two sides of the same coin, my ongoing research attempts to investigate the final moments of life. I examine the value of life by juxtaposing it with the moment it comes to an end.

Hearing the rhythmic sound of musical instruments playing somewhere, an old man suddenly realizes that it is the last day to experience his first love’s final moment. It is a perfect ceremony for not only the dead but also everyone in that small village. The man dresses for the funeral of the woman, who has died at the age of 99. It is a peaceful death of a person who lived a full life, which occasions a “happy funeral.” These scenes of the funeral in “Village of the Watermills” from Akira Kurosawa’s collection of short films “Dreams” (1990) are what greatly spiked my interest to explore the idea of a “good death.”

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I have recently been thinking a lot about the method of the work, whether it is one that someone has already done, how to make it my own original method and whether I should incorporate new technology according to the current flow. The advice that was offered during a conversation with an artist I met at the artist residency two years ago was that acquiring a new skill is to have another tool, and the idea will be conveyed through my work anyway, it is not just a matter of introducing such a skill or a tool. We talked about the importance of our own mode of expressing thoughts and ideas. This was an opportunity to release the pressure of accepting new technology and doing something with it. Instead, I thought I should take the time to hone my skills and develop my own tools. My current goal is to discover my own method through various trials with them.

I started working on the new project over winter break. I will continue to work on the subject I have been working on so far, but I am going to try to do both installation and drawings—the central source of my work—at the same time. I don’t know how it will be. Opening up all possibilities will produce different ideas to use new materials or methods.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://parksungeun.com/home.html
• Instagram: @suneepk312
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sungeun.park.50/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suneepk312/

Image Credits
All photos were taken by the artist.