Only two years ago, I had a moment of revelation. The first thing I learned about art was that it wasn’t just mine. When I was younger, I thought of it as solitary endeavor—a tranquil practice, done with my head down, filling the margins of my notebooks with sketches no one else needed to see. But over time, it became clear that art didn’t really exist until someone else looked at it, felt something because of it, and maybe even said so. That’s when I realized art could be more than just an act of creation. It could be a way to connect, to build something bigger than myself.
Community is strange like that. It doesn’t announce itself; it just appears slowly, almost imperceptibly. First, you’re sketching alone, and then someone asks what you’re drawing. Then there are five of you, talking about color and line and how none of it makes sense but somehow it works. Then there are twenty, sharing stories about what art has done for them—or what it hasn’t done, which can be just as important.
Art, for me, has always been about that shared space. It’s where people meet and where they feel seen, often for the first time. I think back to an old storage facility between the south of Gangnam and where sprawling Gyeonggi province begins, which we renovated into a community center. Though quite bare and minimal, the center, in its inaugural week, attracted guests from near and far. Painting, photographs, even a small sculpture someone had carved out of driftwood adorned the sections in the vast space, as if little creatures found their little nooks for comfort on a cold night.
The exhibition was crowded, not with critics or collectors, but with neighbors and friends. People stood in front of the work, not to judge it but to understand it. They nodded quietly or smiled or asked questions. I watched it all happen and thought – this is art. Not the thing on the wall, but the people gathered around it.
Now, I believe art is always unfinished, like Donatello or Michelangelo’s non finito sculptures—when it leaves room for someone else to add or subtract to it as they see fit. That’s why collaborative projects speak to me, because there is no one single author or artist. In my experience, the best art isn’t revolutionary or profound. The best art functions like a bridge, a way to cross into someone else’s world for a moment. Maybe that’s why I keep doing it—because in a world so often divided, art reminds me that we can still find ways to be together.
