Ludia Sim

신비한 세상

Using photographs from my family’s archive, I disrupt and reconstruct the stories that are represented in the images. By manipulating the photograph and changing its original context I find new ways of expressing my family narrative. This body of work, 신비한 세상 depicts a particular time period of my parent’s younger days and are absent of my presence. Through my process of cutting and breaking apart the photographs, I begin to feel included, as if I was there watching the events unfold. This deliberate act of altering the image allows for a gateway into my parent’s relationship and the past and by changing the original intention of the image, I have now become a participant in the image. 

In my photographs, areas cluster, overlap, and huddle, similar to memories fading away or changing over time. This series reacts to my parent’s unreliable stories and how I recover and discover moments in their lives. It reveals my relationship with my family and the disconnect that is apparent. These photographs of my parents are cryptic to me and the reworking that I’ve done is mysterious to my parents.

My process of manipulation and reconstruction of the images involves glitching and collaging, for example I move the photographs while on a scanner and then cut tiny squares that are connected by corners. I deconstruct the image and work with ideas of dimensions, at times the whole image and other times only parts of it, by doing this to the photograph I discover that only the fundamental parts are left. The deconstruction reveals rearranged memories, where unwanted or irrelevant pieces are left behind and replaced. The patterns, bits, pieces and three dimensional space begins to emerge and becomes an object, a tangible thing to experience.  In my experimentations, I blend and morph the altered photographs into the reflective, mirrored space to create an optical illusion or challenge the two dimensional aspects of the work, making it harder to distinguish between image and background, blurring the line of abstraction and representation. 신비한 세상   is a series of work that fuses archive, altered images and sculptural approaches to reflect on personal history and narrative.