Wonmin Park: Unding: Restoration of Existence

Unding: Restoration of Existence is a new exhibition on view at Carpenters Workshop Gallery that dives into the contrasting and poetic universe of designer Wonmin Park. Featuring ‘objects’ from his “Stone & Steel” collection alongside ‘non objects’ from his “Remediated” artworks, the exhibition explores inherent tensions in designing objects, including absence and presence, function and non-function, form and abstraction. The title of the exhibition is taken from the concept of Unding, meaning ‘unthing’ or ‘non-object’, a theory developed by German-Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han, who defines Unding as this idea of insubstantial non-objects – through to AI and digital reality – as displacing real-world objects. Park explains, “Unding itself means an object or environment that has become futile – dinge means object. So, strike through Un to get unding. (Nonobject)”.

Throughout the exhibition, pieces from his “Stone & Steel” Collection, with its industrial aesthetic that mixes steel and volcanic rock, are juxtaposed with coloured resin and opaque surfaces seen in the sculptural pieces of his “Remediated” Collection, including tables and chairs. In both of these collections we feel the presence of nature and organic materials in play with the industrial and modern materials. Like fossils or archaeological extractions from a distant future, elements of man and nature are seen within. “With the development of digital technology and urbanization, we have lived a comfortable life, but the experience of nature and real objects has become distant, and we only see and know through information. This led me to consider natural objects, digital objects, and handicrafts [within my work]”, writes Park.

Throughout this series of 11 pieces, Park grounds his work in the realities of nature, with elements of stone, earth, water and sky