Gifting

MEAA is delighted to announce the first public presentation of Gifting by Young In Hong. At its core, Gifting explores the subjective value of art and its condition as an object. Developed through relationships with people around her – friends, artists, and neighbours – Hong exchanges objects and artworks, documenting the process through embroidered drawings and stitched texts that tell the story of each exchange. Through the trade of object and art, Hong reflects on systems of value, personal taste, aesthetic judgement, negotiated meaning and the dynamics of human relationships. In collaboration with the artist, MEAA will present selected works from its collection in response to Gifting. By bringing objects from MEAA’s collection into dialogue with Hong’s embroidered exchanges, Gifting invites viewers to consider the meanings objects carry, the stories they tell and the complex networks of relationships they generate. The project’s title, Gifting is inspired by The Gift written by Lewis Hyde. About Young In Hong Born in Seoul, Young In Hong lives and works in Bristol. Her multidisciplinary practice spans drawing, sculpture, installation, sound, textile and performance. Her practice often engages with undervalued cultural traditions such as endangered craft. She explores modes of equality by dissolving the boundaries between the sacred and art, human and animal sensibilities, in order to unsettle the long-standing hierarchies embedded in anthropocentric history. In recent years, Hong has increasingly examined notions of inter-species communication, symbolism and the hybridity of sound, movement and objects.