The Day After

Though we’re nearing the two-year mark since the COVID-19 pandemic began, artists continue to address the dramatic effects of a changed world. Three such projects are viewable at the Korean Cultural Center Washington D.C.’s The Day After exhibit at Culture House gallery through Nov. 20. Artists Ivetta Sunyoung Kang, Su Hyun Nam, and Jayoung Yoon deal with different responses to the pandemic, creating works that reflect on what has been lost and remembered during social distancing and lockdowns. In keeping with the remote experiences that have typified the past 18 months, all three artists exhibit digital media through single-channel videos. Kang focuses on the new ramifications of touch, the loss of physical contact, and our ability to retain connection in “Tenderhands” and “Proposition 1: Hands.” Similarly, Yoon’s work focuses on the strain the pandemic has placed on bodies. Her “Reflections in Mindfulness” features Yoon lying naked in the center of a dock on a placid pond, while “Dreaming of life” contains a skull sculpture knotted with her own hair. Both suggest simultaneously grappling with fear and inner peace—through Yoon’s work, we get the feeling neither emotion is mutually exclusive. Nam’s digital landscapes also examine this tension. In “Metamorphosis” and “Woven Milieu,” the artist melds various urban images into distorted but beautiful representations of cities transformed by lockdowns. Though the works evoke a changed world, it’s the mixture of what is recognizable and what is not that gives it a dueling sense of comfort and discomfort. The Day After runs through Nov. 20 at Culture House, 700 Delaware Ave. SW. washingtondc.korean-culture.org. Free.