YEON SUE PARK

“Nothing exists until or unless it is observed”
William S. Burroughs

How to perform Anthropology? 

Anthropologist, Artist from Korea based in Barcelona and Seoul.

Exploration of the crossroads between anthropology and art is the first fundamental question of both my artwork and my professional identity. I experiment how ethnographic findings and insights can be represented by the languages of art. Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange, the most royal practice of my field work experience, allows me to create both artistic and anthropological narratives in everyday life. 

These questions often intrigue me:

 – How you do anthropology in art?
 – How to perform anthropology in unconventional way?
 – Where am I situated in the process of this work as an author? What is the circumstances under which the work is being made? How do I deal with the vulnerabilities? 
 – How to write up the findings? Would my work create the resonance of Me- too moments to the public?
 – What would be the impact of this?

I use installation, image, performance and writing in order to create an experimental and coherent way of representing my ideas and findings.

“Artists, like ethnographers, train their eyes to see things other people don’t see. They try to present what they see so that we, the audience, can glimpse something where we have looked a thousand times and failed to find anything noteworthy.”    Martin Hoyem, anthropologist