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MJW PAPER
Interview and photography by Nina Moog
JOOHEE HAN
Oval, brooch, eggshell, silicone, stainless-steel, 2020
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A 2020 graduate of the Akademie Der Bildenden Künste München, Joohee and I held this conversation at her studio, located on a quiet street in a residential neighbourhood a level underground. Her workspace is set in the corner of a wider studio shared with other artists, her personal area and bench placed across the room from a friend. Joohee’s most recent work relies on a technique where she meticulously places eggshells into silicon, and concerns the question of an ideal type, or form. Through her brooches and more recent necklaces, eggs – often associated with a specific form – have been transformed into a new shape. In other words, Joohee literally had to break some eggs to make her jewellery. Her pieces feel like a prescient reminder during lockdown, where our expectations to the natural order of things have been in constant shift. As we talked, I couldn’t keep my eyes from wandering over to the shelving she built into her desk during the first lockdown. Facing me, this shelf contained several rows of jars, each half-filled with eggshells of different colours and sizes. Standing to attention, these jars created a painterly palette in representation of Joohee’s special attention to both conceptual and technical detail.
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