Dodo leading the Dodos Painting

I wanted to be a bird since I was young. Freely flying bird through the cast shy with no boundary or wall was always my longing object. It didn’t took long for me to realize the words from ‘elders’ were just a deception, that our scope of selections and freedom on our life will extend as we get older and live more. We are currently living in a domiciliation society which the old nomadic society of living has been ended in the early days. Domiciliation society is strictly set on wanting to produce people whom with a domiciling lifestyle and standards. Therefore try to induce people to live in a preset ‘recommending’ version of living style. People even become not to know where their desires have come from by all sorts of surrounded medias that convince people with the ‘benefits’ that are set only by themselves. These sources that is ‘coercions that does not feel like a coercion’ effects undiscriminatingly in direct/indirectly not only to the country society but also to families, friends and other people around. Under these society systems, each individual lose their colorful dreams and become feel such as one tiny part of a machines by individuation. The education valuables learning from universities have been determined meaningless long time ago and known as just one of a progress to be a ‘Samsung man’ or a ‘public servant’. Although living in a current generation which described as full of freedom with no origin, ironically modern people unconsciously follow the standardized ways. I thought these people living in this modern society looks like a wingless bird. Bird use to be described as a symbol of freedom that could freely fly to any directions they want, but birds that appears in my work are all wingless which wings are all cut off away and locked in humans body and cloths. This is a bird that could not be said as a bird which is a ‘bird human’, who wings that represents the free will is all departed and unfortunately have be stuck on the ground. ​ I have learned the tragedy of the Dodo bird while I was working on these projects. The dodo bird inhabited the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, where it lived undisturbed for so long that it lost its need and ability to fly. It lived and nested on the ground and ate fruits that had fallen from trees. There were no mammals on the island and a high diversity of bird species lived in the dense forests. In 1505, the Portuguese became the first humans to set foot on Mauritius. The island quickly became a stopover for ships engaged in the spice trade. Weighing up to 50 pounds, dodo bird was a welcome source of fresh meat for the sailors. Large numbers of dodo birds were killed for food. ‘Dodo’ stands for the meaning of ‘stupid’ in Portuguese which named by Portuguese because they use to laugh at these dodo birds by being caught so easily to them. In 1681 the last dodo bird has been killed and only the place that proves of dodo bird is by their bones displayed in National Library of Port Louis Mauritius. ​ After knowing this fact, I felt in mind that modern people are also unconsciously pulling out one by one of their wing feathers that represents their freedom by themselves. Therefore I felt the dodo bird is related and gives some kind of warning to nowadays modern people. Meanwhile I had a chance to travel for a month (07.05 – 08.05.2015) to Mauritius and work on my art by promoted in the ‘ilhyun travel grant’ and learned that dodo bird is actually give a very strong inspiration by itself. ​ The complex jungle image that appears in my work represents the property of a jungle where unpredictable risks and uncertainties are present, but it is a landscape that expresses the feelings I felt when I visited Mauritius. Mauritius, a tropical climate region, has been densely populated with jungles everywhere, all year round, hot and humid throughout the year. The fact that I was searching for an extinct Dodo in Mauritius made me feel like I was playing hide-and-seek with them. This unrealistic hide-and-seek like this wandering gave me endless vague anxieties, because it was always preoccupied with finding a clear answer. Rather, this experience enabled new ways of thinking and anxieties. So a month in Mauritius, it has made me recognize the place of jungle as a place with both uncertainty and possibility. Modern people are encouraged and encouraged to have a clear process and purpose. But wandering may not be considered useless or vulgar, but rather it may be one of the most effective ways to find new possibilities and your own unique values ​​in a complex world like this jungle. In that sense, changing the work environment for me has become like a fate. Just because I left for Mauritius, as I found Dodo as a mediator to communicate our stories with me, new ideas and stories come from fluid thinking and action. So I left for a city in another country to change the direction of work and thinking. I gathered the data there and tried to work with the images of the city, jungle, and Dodo bird. The city is the place where most modern people living in this age run their lives. Like many milestones and signs in the city, the city is a place where many different values ​​and desires are in conflict with each other. As a stranger, I came across many cities and I had the opportunity to see the city I had always used to with the other's eyes. In the race of desires that are happening in a city like a huge jungle, people forget to know what they truly desire and live their own desires. In the landscape where jungle and city are mixed, Dodo birds are individuals and observers in this jungle-like modern society. Even if the destination and what to do are fixed, the trip offers us a different option than everyday. That's why we feel fresh even in the small parts we encounter during the journey. That is why we are once again giving our attention to things that are unintentionally passed on, and we see them in a different way. I am working with my mind as if my life is always fresh and just like the journey. It is not exciting to wander and to go somewhere. Because it involves an unpredictable fear and anxiety. But the tens of thousands of roads that unfold when you get out of the way will encourage new ideas and imagination. ​ Recent works motivated by the famous paintings are formative attempts between the boundaries of parody and pastiche. These works began with the desire to make new formative attempts on the subject of Dodo. And I used the artwork that was proved as formative as the material for it. And I made a parody and a pasty attempt with Dodo. We can see a glimpse of the episteme of the times in familiar masterpieces. We can discover not only the style and historical facts of that era, but also the times in which we live. This is one of the major reasons why the famous works of the past are still processed and used in various ways in the modern mainstream culture and numerous subcultures. So I try to visualize through these attempts and try to reinterpret it through the parody and pastes based on the story of Dodo as the story of the present age. ​ As a result, I suggest a Homo viator mindset as an answer to the occasion and the rituals of the work mentioned above. The philosopher Gabriel Marcel mentioned, Homo Biator means 'a wandering man'. Human beings grow up after wandering and return. In modern society, wandering is considered to be bad, but it will be a wonderful experience to meet many roads and possibilities that have not been anticipated when wandering from numerous routes. So I would like to say that the Dodo birds that appear in my work are those who have the possibility of flying again rather than being a 'flying idiot'. ​ The world tries to limit our imagination and deceives many lies into facts, but we end up trying to find and discover something that is still hopeful in the midst of such violent narratives. I think that it is the spirit of the age that an artist living in this age should have to give out such hopeful things to the world without overtaking it.