Youn Hee Park

Behind White

2023 / light installation : transparent paper, black light

The project ”behind whiteness” is at the center of the long term multicultural moral debate over the nature of modernity. It reveals the relationship between imperialism(civilisation) and cultural hegemony, where historically unresolved and ambiguous views have been learned from the literature that is still very popular. Trough visually rendered ideas and linguistic utterances, the power of literary language profoundly impacts on how we see the world in the 21st century. The imagery of race hidden in literary content evokes powerful stereotype manipulation. Alice Walker called it “prisons of image” as stereotype images.

It represents two completely different faces, the calm blank white image of the daytime and hidden whiteness words on the papers at night. All four sides of glasses at Wewerka Pavilion are covered with white papers. When the public approaches or enters the exhibition space (Wewerka), the motion sensor switches on black light and the collected quotes from literature are strongly illuminated through the black lights. Viewers are confronted with a violent visual moment, full of brightly lit words that momentarily blind your eyes. When the black light is turned off after 1 minute, all that remains is a still white wall with blank papers and the text has disappeared into the white image, invisible without a trace.

Due to this spatial change, the audiences can remember only a few words as an image, which can evoke powerful stereotype manipulating image of race.