Icarus is the son of Daedalus in Greek mythology, who wore wings made of bird feathers and wax, created by his father, to fly in the sky in order to escape the labyrinth. He ignored his father’s warning not to fly too close to the sun, and when he flew too close, the wax on his wings melted and he fell into the sea and died. This story symbolizes human desire and limitation, and has remained as an idiom meaning ‘do not challenge the sun’. This myth is interpreted as a warning against reckless desire and excessive ambition.

  However, in a modern era, it also symbolizes human’s pure desire and dream to challenge the unknown world. Everyone is aware of their own limitations and imperfections, yet possesses an inner desire to constantly strive toward their ideals. Today, there are modern Icaruses in various fields such as science, technology and art who strive to transcend existing limits. In my work, the Icarusㅡlike desire embodied by the caterpillar machine goes beyond the meaning of traditional myth and also symbolize the challenges and struggles experienced by modern people. The wriggling of the caterpillar symbolizes the nature of ‘challenging humanity’, and represents the unceasing struggle that cannot be stopped, even if the process is dangerous and imperfect.

  I have been living busy, focusing only on showing results. I have bound myself to constantly proving myself at every moment. However, when the results were unsatisfactory, the frustration and anxiety I experienced led me to deeper self-reflection, and at some point, I wanted to look into the process itself before success or failure as a result. It is because the conflicts and choices I encounter in each moment of life, and the subtle emotions between them, accumulate to make up who I am. Perhaps every process is itself the result.

 For this time, I am questioning the fundamental gestures of invisible human existence, where failure and challenge coexist. Also, through this work, I hope to remember the hope that I can transcend myself and the gestures of the present.

  Although Icarus fell in the myth, this is an endless process of leaping toward an ideal, striving to reach the sun.

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 ...Something contracts, then unfolds—again and again. Three structures hang from the ceiling, and each one symbolizes a different stage of existence.
 At the center, a caterpillar machine breathes light as its body gently contracts and expands.
 On both sides, pupas are hanging quietly in stillness.
 Together, these three forms represent the process of transformation toward an ideal. They hold one another in a tense relationship at the boundary of change.

  The caterpillar’s twisting is not only an instinct for survival but also a gesture toward the ideal.
 Though it may seem like a simple movement of crawling on the ground, but inside, it breathes the desire to spread wings and fly into the sky.
 Through repeated contraction and expansion, the caterpillar generates a force that transforms its being and pushes it forward.

  I captured the moment filled with tension and conflict during the metamorphosis process that connects the caterpillar, the pupa, and the butterfly through this movement.
 The caterpillar machine forms a continuum with the pupa that surrounds it, and continues to struggle to surpass its own limits. Its movement becomes a metaphor for an incomplete existence striving for transcendence, and a symbol of the threshold where transformation takes place. The pupa appears static on the outside, but inside, the struggle for growth is repeated. The curling and uncurling of the body, the struggle inside, and then spreading wings to take flight—all these boundaries function as preparatory stages for new change and awareness.      

 In repeating the act of folding and unfolding, I look deeply into my own inner self.
 The form of fumbles, struggles, and creeps toward an ideal, entangling despair and hope.
 It is the most primal gesture for moving toward a goal, an endlessly repeated leap.      

Where does the ideal truly exist?     

 I move my body toward the ideal, sometimes faintly, sometimes intensely.
 Although every movement is fragile and incomplete, movement never stops.
 This movement continuously draws bundles of trajectories, and those lines meet and intertwine to create a drawing striving toward the ideal.      

 This work seeks to reveal that dynamic image.
 This work records an intimate trace of the self—a record of an incomplete being struggling toward its ideal.
 Within each subtle motion and quiet breath, one question repeats endlessly...
How far can I fly?     

 I continue to contract and unfold my body.
 Even when the motion feels faint and repetitive, my movement never stops reaching toward the ideal.