HABIN ISABELLE KIM

The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud once said: “the mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water”. Psychoanalysis teaches us that present day trauma is the result of memories that are repressed to the unconscious part of the psyche, of which we have no control. The mind is a feeble instrument of habit, one that is driven by fear, and that shy’s away from feelings of vulnerability and inadequacy. I envisage the unconscious to be a haunted and solemn location, where desire is an object of freedom and instinct forms the language.

I am interested in experiences of vulnerability, and how our innate reactions of suppressing such emotions do not change. In my studio practice I create minimal sculptures and immersive installations based upon specific (and thoroughly in- formed) Freudian theories. I am drawn to the ideas of the conscious and the unconscious parts of the mind, and illustrat- ing the polarity of the relationship between them through the format of physical change and movement within sculptures. What intrigues me is the notion that the unconscious cannot be accessed by choice (unlike the conscious), but how it is able to influence behaviour and your thoughts. It is the part of the mind that is unattainable that is of most significance.

I investigate the abstract formality of inherently human experiences of inadequacy, such as shame and guilt, looking into the automatic response of defence in the form of a ‘self-shield’ to hide ones emotions, simultaneously examining the counter-response of trauma that comes with suppressing negative memories, showing that nothing can be hidden. My sculptures are conversations for what I believe are important psychological subjects that we fear to open up to. Psychoanalysis deems itself to be the ‘talking cure’ to trauma, therefore I believe in the importance of the material language within my works. I use structural forms to create bounds within spaces to show the constraints of the mind, integrating perishable and time-based elements to suggest the uncontrollable nature of the instinctual part of the mine (the Id). I strive to represent the futile nature of repression, and use the conversation of sculpture to encourage confronting the self.