Venice Biennale: Kimsooja

Kimsooja’s Venice Biennale installation, ‘To Breathe: Bottari’ allows nature to permeate the walls of an interior space transforming it into a physical and psychological sanctuary.

Approaching the architecture of the Korean Pavilion as a bottari (Korean for bundle), Kimsooja has wrapped the division between nature and the interior space with a translucent film. Treating the windows as the skin of the Pavilion, the film diffracts the natural sunlight as it showers the interior space with rainbow spectrums of light.

The intensity of the light in the Pavilion will correspond to the daily movement of the sun rising to its setting across the Korean Pavilion, the space will transform into a transcendental experience—folding and unfolding the phenomenon of light.

‘To Breathe: Bottari’ presents the empty space of the Pavilion, inviting only the bodies of the audience to encounter the infinite reflections of light and sound. Kimsooja’s amplified inhaling, exhaling and humming sounds from her performance piece, ‘The Weaving Factory’, fill the air and transform the Pavilion into a live breathing space.

Simultaneously, the artist extends the experience of light and sound by creating an anechoic chamber. A space in complete darkness that absorbs all audio waves, leaving nothing but the sound of the viewer’s own body. This section of ‘To Breathe’ creates a soundless dark void of infinite reflection of self: a black hole.

’To Breathe’ is on display until Sunday 24 November 2013 at the Korean Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale.

This post forms part of fluoro’s coverage of the 55th Venice Biennale.