HaeAhn Kwon
Get Around to How

August 10–September 1, 2018
Opening: Friday, August 10th 6–8pm

ESP is pleased to present HaeAhn Kwon's solo exhibition: Get Around To How.

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This exhibition engages with multiple hows, but not how-tos. "How" is a connective tissue that generates speculative motion: How do we arrive at associations? How do incongruent parts come together meaningfully to suggest an otherwise? How does one set out to make meaning inefficiently and with purpose? How can we become "selectively open"* to meaning? What are the conditions that pause interpretation and instead engender a space of inventive association—a space prior to the drawing of violent conclusions?

*From Audre Lorde's phrase "a commitment to being selectively open" in "An Interview: Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich" in Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches.

HaeAhn Kwon mainly works in drawing, sculpture and installation. Her current research interest in strategies of the makeshift has led to a body of works that recombines and transforms everyday objects. Her assemblage and installations are informed by the vernacular architecture and object arrangements found in the urban environment of her native South Korea. Kwon's recent crude ink drawings depict women pissing near vehicles or in communal environments, which she describes in relation to urgency, shame, absurdity and jouissance. Kwon received her BFA from Cooper Union and has participated in exhibitions in Canada (Support, ESP), the US (The Hand, Michael Benevento) and South Korea (Samuso, Sempio Space, Okin Theater). This is her first solo exhibition in Canada and represents the partial fulfillment of degree requirements in the MFA program at the University of Guelph.