My work explores the concept of “the self”, “the other” and “otherness” as they appear across history, literature, scientific research, popular media, and my own experiences of living across different cultures. I work with animation, performance, drawing, sculpture, and digital media to make these explorations into tangible forms. Growing up in South Korea, a country marked by the legacy of the Cold War and colonialism, I came to understand “the other” as a historical and personal reality. My experiences as a foreigner navigating life in different countries exposed me to racial discrimination, societal structures, and the ideologies that shape perceptions of unfamiliar identities. Being both a woman and an artist has also deepened my awareness of “othered” narratives—those stories that are often silenced or overlooked.

Through research and lived experiences, my work weaves personal narratives into broader collective narratives, constructing fictional worlds that examine, distort, and question what is considered a status quo. I use elements of science fiction, mythology, and pop culture to explore the darkest imaginations and hopeful projections that address issues of sexism, racism, and colonialism.

I am interested in the boundaries between two opposing yet complimentary concepts such as yin and yang, tragedy and comedy, good and bad, laughter and cry etc. I am attracted to the contradictions and absurdity, as I sense that to understand “the other”, one needs to shift between these contradicting concepts, to change one’s perspective.  

Ultimately, my work aims to sensorially and intellectually involve the audience in these narrative worlds to feel something different, bringing them a little closer to feeling with “the other”.

---

Young Joo Lee is an artist from South Korea, currently living and working in Paris. Lee currently is a doctoral candidate at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Lee was an Assistant professor at the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University (-Spring 2024), a College Fellow in Media Practice at Harvard University (2018-20), Macdowell fellow (2021), a recipient of Fulbright Scholarship in Film & Digital Media (2015-18), and DAAD artist scholarship (2010-12). Lee holds an MFA in Sculpture at Yale University (2017) and an MFA in Film at the Academy of Fine Arts Städelschule Frankfurt (2013). 

CV [PDF]

Represented by OCHI Gallery
For any inquiries, please contact the gallery at GALLERY@OCHIGALLERY.COM