A massive, expressionless head; a headless figure drenched in blood with an umbilical cord; and innumerable bloody tongues protruding from the wall … Insoon Ha’s [1] creations evoke deep unease and discomfort, leaving viewers trembling, as if a thin needle is piercing their hearts, making it hard to breathe, let alone gasp. Her works confront the structural violence of modern society, the cruelty embedded in human history, and the savagery of mass murder. This is the world we inhabit, yet often choose to ignore. Ha compels us to face these harsh realities.
Toenails
Insoon Ha, born in 1968 in Seoul, South Korea, is the second generation of North Korean exiles. She has one older sister and one younger sister. Ha’s father, originally from a wealthy family in Ryonggang, faced persecution by the Communists, leading to the confiscation of their property and their house being used as a communist office. Consequently, Ha’s father enlisted in the army at a young age and fought in the Korean Civil War against the Communists. Ha’s mother, who fled to South Korea at the age of twelve during winter, suffered frostbite on her feet and lost her toenails while crossing the Han river.
Ha’s parents met on a blind date and married in Seoul. In her memories, her father was a smart, humorous man and a master of Go. However, these qualities could not mask his deep hatred for his fate or alleviate his sense of alienation following his exile in South Korea. Consequently, her father couldn’t hold a job for long. As she grew up, she often saw him consumed by gambling and alcohol and attempted suicide. Ha discovered much later that her father suffered from PTSD. The only solace she found was that he had never been physically violent towards the family; instead, she endured his absence and the coldness of his emotional detachment. Because of her family’s exile and her relationship with her father, Ha never developed a sense of ‘home’ in her childhood. Instead, she always felt like an outsider, perpetually lonely.
“It’s not my work!”
Despite these circumstances, nothing deterred Ha from becoming an artist. She displayed exceptional artistic talent as a child, and with the encouragement and support of a dedicated high school teacher, she earned a full four-year scholarship to study in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Seoul, specializing in sculpture. After graduation, Ha became a successful full-time artist, receiving numerous grants and opportunities for solo exhibitions. She was commissioned for several productions and even taught at two universities. Most of her works during this period were figurative and realistic human sculptures. However, despite her success, Ha felt a profound sense of displacement and even felt that these creations were not “her” works at all.
Insoon Ha, Face, 2011-2013, Courtesy of the artist.
At the same time, the intense social and political reforms in South Korea profoundly impacted Ha, causing her artistic practices to gradually shift from modern art to contemporary art. She firmly believed that artistic creation must respond to current social and political issues. For Ha, a successful career and a happy family became a sweet trap hindering her growth. This situation worsened after she got married and gave birth to a daughter, eventually leading to postpartum depression.
In 2004, Ha and her husband decided to give up everything and move to Canada. Yet, what awaited her was likely the most challenging period of her life. With no prior experience abroad, Ha had to pursue her master’s degree in sculpture at the Department of Fine Arts at the State University of New York at Buffalo, while raising her daughter in a foreign country. Every day, she had to send her daughter to daycare in St. Catharines, Canada, and then drove across the border to Buffalo for classes. She had scarce resources, little social support, and insufficient time to produce her works. Life was extremely harsh for Ha.
Abjection and Motherhood
Meanwhile, Ha’s artistic creation underwent a profound transformation during this period. In addition to her art training in North America, the birth and growth of her daughter had a significant impact on her work. Motherhood became a central theme in many of Ha’s pieces, but she depicted it not merely as a state of pure, unconditional love. Instead, she intertwined it with psychoanalytic negative emotions such as reluctance, exclusion and abjection. According to Julia Kristeva, abjection involves a primal reaction to what is fundamentally excluded from our sense of self, such as bodily fluids and the maternal body. [2] This reaction is essential for the formation of individual subjectivity but is also a source of trauma. Kristeva describes how the child must reject the mother, who embodies the abjected, to establish its own subjectivity.
While this theory typically applies to the child’s perspective, it is equally valid from the mother’s viewpoint. A mother may experience similar primary negative emotions, pushing away and excluding the baby as part of establishing her new self-subjectivity. In a society that prioritizes reproduction over women’s rights, motherhood can become an imposition, forcing women to sacrifice their own subjectivities. Thus, Ha’s exploration of motherhood reflects the dualism inherent in the psyche of motherhood, encompassing both its nurturing aspects and its darker, abject side.
Insoon Ha, Mother Story, 2004, Courtesty of the artist.
This duality of motherhood appears in several of Ha’s works. For example, in the 2003 photographic piece Mother, a human mother embraces and breastfeeds a deformed hybrid fetus. This same hybrid fetus reappears in the 2004 installation Mother Story, where it is suspended in the air with several tubes connected to its body, the liquid within them constantly flowing back and forth. Nearby, a headless statue of a human mother is curled up in a corner. The deformed hybridity of the fetus holds multiple meanings. First, it can signify the abject—the excluded, unrecognized, marginalized, and oppressed minorities in society. Second, it is also a projection of Ha’s self-identity: As a descendant of North Korean refugees living in South Korea, and an Asian in North America with limited English proficiency, Ha has consistently felt excluded, unrecognized, and marginalized by the mainstream. Her works thus capture the complex dualities inherent in motherhood and life, intertwining exclusion and inclusion; abjection and empathy; fear and love; pain and joy.
Pathos
Ha considers herself a mother, a daughter, and an artist, with a duty to empathize with the oppressed. She does not want her works to become mere decorations for the wealthy but hopes to connect deeply with the suffering and misfortune of common people. Ha believes that only those who have experienced illness can truly understand the pain of being sick. Her creations do not merely represent suffering; they transform it through artistic expression, revealing the dual nature of abjection and love that coexist in life. Her works address various unfortunate and unjust events in modern society and human history. Dirge (2023) commemorates the youth who died due to structural violence, including indigenous children buried in the cemeteries of Canadian Indian residential schools and the young students who perished in the MV Sewol sinking in South Korea. Supply (2004) tackles the issue of comfort women, while Tongues (2003) and Taste Pant Obey (2003) critique the extensive influence of the United States on South Korea, both militarily and politically.
Insoon Ha, She, 2007, Courtesy of the artist.
Ha perceives herself a powerless minority. She is just a housewife with limited English proficiency and an artist without a “proper” job. Nevertheless, Ha finds empowerment in her artistry. Through her art, she can produce sharp and provocative works. The unsettling, disturbing, and uncomfortable sentiments evoked by her pieces serve as her silent roar and resistance against the systemic injustices and the structural brutality in society that we often choose to ignore. Although art cannot directly change people’s lives, Ha believes that at least it can stimulate and agitate the audience. While acknowledging that art may not directly alter lives, Ha believes in its ability to stir emotions and prompt reflection. Drawing on the concept of ‘pathos,’ her art aims to evoke sentiments like sadness, pity, and sympathy. In this regard, Ha’s works serve their purpose admirably, effectively engaging and affecting their audience. —[SCR]
[1] Insoon Ha’s website: https://www.insoonha.ca/↩
[2] Kristeva, Julia. Powers of horror: An essay on abjection. Columbia University Press, 2024.↩
*The articles in this editorial feature selected artists and curators interviewed by Taiwanese curator and researcher Feng-Yi Chu during his curatorial residency at ISCP in New York. His residency program, “Applications of Mysticism in Modern and Contemporary American Arts,” is sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Taiwan.
*Header Image: Insoon Ha, Dirge, 2023.
