<Counting the weight of Gerberas>
Ahyun LEE Solo Exhibition
▫️ 2024.05.07–19 (Closed on Mondays)
▫️ 12–6 PM
▫️ TYA Gallery (28 Jahamun-ro 5-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea)
▫️ 12–6 PM
▫️ TYA Gallery (28 Jahamun-ro 5-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea)
Text by Yeri Jin
Poster by Kyunga Kwon
Poster by Kyunga Kwon
In this project, I present a series of narrative scenarios centered on a chief mourner who values the number of visitors and their presence more than the act of mourning the deceased itself. Last year, after my grandmother passed away, I observed my father remaining at the funeral hall as the chief mourner, surrounded by countless funeral wreaths. The greater the number of wreaths, the more the funeral was considered a “good funeral,” and visitors often checked the names written on the wreaths.
In this context, I came to see the funeral wreath not as a measure of grief or remembrance, but as part of an evaluative system in which even death becomes quantified by how many people responded to it. Based on this strange experience—one that felt contradictory to the nature of death itself—I constructed a narrative set within a funeral hall, depicted through slight distortions and exaggerated imagery.
Within the work, the red gerbera functions as a signifier of the “like” button. Through this project, I question a one-dimensional value system in which the only concern becomes whether one’s life is worthy of being posted on Instagram. At the same time, the work reflects the uncanny way in which the number of “likes” we receive becomes intertwined with our sense of satisfaction and value in life.
