MASKED WORDS SERIES 

Insa Art Space, Seoul, Korea
Nov 2 -21, 2021 
mask filter, print on drafting film sheet, 39x27cm 
Somil Soway (Grace Cho, Wonwoori, and Sua Kim)


Masked Words is one of the works of an exhibition Masked Words, which was curated collaborating with a psychotherapist and music composer. Mask filters cover the words of counseling transcripts from counselee who have been socially alienated and marginalized by the inescapable situations prompted by COVID-19 pandemic. Works aim to shed light upon the stories of the counselee. Their words, existing only as a silhouette, are hardly intelligible and visible. 

Masked Words, 2021, mask filter, print on drafting film sheet, 39x27cm






What Should I Say, 2021, mask filter, print on paper, 39 x 27cm
I Can’t Put into Words, 2021, mask filter, print on paper, 39 x 27cm
It’s an Unexpected Difficulty, 2021, mask filter, print on paper, 39 x 27cm


We can only assume the adversities of counselee through their limited words in partially visible sentences. Can their words embody the experienced difficulties comprehensively? Can we say that we understood them simply by listening? We question the limited nature of language, the most common means used to converse and to describe the experience of alienation.



Photo by Enoch Jeong, Eunchan Kim, and Chulkyu Jin