Ahreum Lee: Hopping for Hope

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Ahreum Lee, "Hopping for Hope," 2020

The New Gallery presents Hopping for Hope, an exhibition by visiting artist Ahreum Lee.

We hope you can join us for the opening reception on Friday, January 17 at 8pm. Admission is free and all are welcome. 

Hopping for Hope is a series of artworks that uses playful game elements to address research surrounding Google’s global mapping methodology. These works examine the disorientation of the diasporic experience as mediated through digital technology and the Internet. 

Hopping for Hope is an exercise in how I navigate myself towards a global identity as an immigrant, artist, and as a human being.

In our digital era, the Internet shapes perceptions of reality, including our sense of the physical world. For many, Google has become the arbiter of world cartography. While Google maintains that their maps are neutral and apolitical, the depiction of regional borders shifts to reflect the political reality of where Google Maps is being accessed from. Additionally, Street View allows us to digitally move through the world. Borders are essentially imaginary. 

Hopping for Hope contains a video that mimics the popular arcade game Dance Dance Revolution. It combines footage of the East Asian pseudoscience Cheok Ji Beob, “the way to make the world smaller,” with screen captures from Street View. Those that immerse themselves in Cheok Ji Beob believe that through ritual practice and movement, they can fold space and time to “jump” instantaneously from one place in the world to another.

I’ve come to understand borders like a game of hopscotch, leading me to create a version of the game that uses geographical border lines generated by Google Maps. In Korea, hopscotch rules are a bit different than in the West. When you finish hopping through all the numbers, you must toss a stone in the air with your eyes closed. The area that it lands on belongs to you. Through this arbitrary act, you end up with a section of territory that you must try to keep and protect. As a child this was a fun game, but as an adult, it has lead me to ask serious questions about the nature of borders, land ownership, and geographical data. What is the difference between physical and virtual movement? How do digital devices mediate our sense of space and orientation? Do my thoughts travel with me, or belong to where I am? - Ahreum Lee

Biography

Ahreum Lee is a musician and interdisciplinary media artist from Seoul, South Korea and is currently based in Montreal. Lee began her career as the co-founder and frontwoman of experimental art-rock band Juck Juck Grunzie. After spending nearly a decade producing records and touring internationally, she extended her practice into video and multimedia installation work. She was a finalist for the Emerging Digital Artist Award held by EQ Bank and Trinity Square Video (Toronto) in 2019. She has exhibited and performed in Montreal at the Darling Foundry, Studio XX, Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery, as well as Third Shift Festival (Saint John), and Axis Lab (Chicago).  Additionally, she has participated in the Intersections | Cross-sections (Toronto) and In Motion: Performance and Unsettled Borders (Chicago) conferences. She is currently pursuing her MFA at Concordia University.