Project ‘Giving forms to digital conversation’ by Miyeon Lee

In the lobby of the C-Campus building of Maastricht Housing, Miyeon Lee has installed an art work, large printed foils on the walls. The work is about exploring forms of digital contacts when you are far from home.

When the South Korean artist Miyeon Lee arrived in Maastricht  for a year's residency at the Jan van Eyck Academy, this city was new to her, she knew no one and felt displaced, even lonely. This state of mind increased her smartphone activity more than usual, for texting and talking with her family and friends outside of Maastricht. The telephone and text messaging gave her a feeling of home - a temporary relief for her move.

The artist started recording these text messages by placing a transparent foil over the telephone and pushing her finger into paints while texting. These films were then scanned, inflated and printed on paper.

This search for forms for the digital world and its experiences with relocations fit wonderfully well with the experiences of international students. Their smartphone and the use of social media appear to be the most intensive form of communication with family and friends at home.

In collaboration with students, she used their texts as input for a work of art.                                        Of the many text messages from students, "How are you?" and "yes, no, maybe" were chosen.  "How are you?" seems to contain the most shared feeling - wanting to know how you are in a new environment, and "yes, no, maybe" can be seen as summarized and symbolic answers to that question.

In the lobby of the C-Campus building of Maastricht Housing, Miyeon Lee has installed large printed foils on the walls.

The production was created in collaboration with the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht Housing and the Maastricht University Art and Heritage Committee.

More about the method of Miyeon Lee                                                                                                    She wonders what the relevance and meaning of painting is. Does painting convey a message to today's world of digital, mobile, abundant and fast images? Should painting find a new sense of autonomy and a new type of 'commitment art', which could mean a 'back-to-basics' approach?

With these questions in mind, the artist creates images about the feeling of migration, of living. Miyeon moved from Korea in 1997 to New York, Berlin, Maastricht and currently she lives in Chur (CH). The move became a catalyst for her art. The idea of ​​uncertainty, relocating, belonging, the look of an outsider are elements that touch her. She uses the new social media as a source. She delves further into the philosophy of traditional Korean painting and regards each painting as a landscape that shows reflections of society such as control and freedom, shadow and humor.

Mieke Derickx