I am in my 30s Super Mom

YUN sanghee’s I Am in My 30s Super Mom tells the story of women who are an oppressed social minority in contemporary society. This work is the place women want to go, the place they want to keep their secrets. This piece, which conveys the story of women’s life, is also the space where their mind can be embraced and heal. The artist finds a major source of anxiety in the self-inflicted oppression and trauma that women suffer in the course of their growth rather than pressure by institutions or regulations from the outside. Hence, she says that resolving this by “searching for the hidden self” is women’s fate. Through this work, she expresses that living a life of crafts not only entails producing and possessing the craftworks but is another healing method by which one can understand oneself and communicate with others through the spiritual communion with objects. “Why do I have only two arms? I am always wishing I had more arms. This is why I carry things on my back, around my waist, and with both my hands. To live as a good daughter, good mother, good wife, good teacher, and a good “self” is painful,
exhausting, and brutal. Like a monster sprung from a pocket, I transform. I am a Pokémon living in this contemporary world. I am a “human Pokémon” that transforms by necessity, depending on the given space and situation. The hair of Medusa in Greek mythology is the wriggling snakes that move on their own. My arms also move around in giddiness like the wiggling snakes. Just as the Pokémon releases powerful energy for customized transformation, I wiggle constantly to become a supermom. At times, I want to let go of everything. I want to live with just my two normal arms. I want to escape the obsessive-compulsiveness and go back into the pocket.Carrying heavy loads beyond my limits in my both arms and floundering in the sea of twenty-first century work, I am an unstable and insecure being. I am still unstable and insecure today. The I Am series represents myself and other women as individuals caught in various human relations. People meet all sorts of people, form diverse human relations, and seek out their meaning and value throughout their entire lives. Rather than searching for an absolute value, people seek relative value in the numerous relations that they form at home, at work, and in society. The arms that are stretched out in different directions are the psychological expression of pursuing such relative values. “I” am a strong woman, but there is a vulnerable woman inside that. I Am in My 30s Super Mom represents the thirty-something contemporary woman, myself in my thirties, busily making our way in this age with too many things to handle. I wanted to talk about the lost identity and transformed body of myself and other women as we place more value on work, child-rearing, and family. The piece was produced with 3D printer, and the surface was finished with lacquer. The psychology of thirty-something women who are exhausted, angry, and insecure is expressed through red arms.”