An Opaque Wind

Overview

In her work, Haegue Yang has employed ready-made objects such as fans, humidifiers, venetian blinds, clothing racks and building materials, customising them with found matter, colour, handmade forms and sensory choreography. At the heart of these works is always a unique play on human experience through temporality and spatialisation. An Opaque Wind (2015) takes as its point of departure the intertwined geo-economic history of Korea and the Gulf region since the 1970s, through which Korean labour and dreams of industrialisation lent thousands upon thousands of fathers, uncles and brothers to construct the oil infrastructure that drives today’s political economy.

A freestanding steel structure stretches across the courtyard of Bait Al Aboudi, each axis covered with corrugated plate or steel grating, creating an oscillation between transparency and opacity, openness and impenetrability. Situated within this structure and the surrounding incomplete rooms are various sculptures made from common construction elements, including industrial vents that, like Sharjah’s traditional wind towers before them, take advantage of directional winds. Within Yang’s labyrinthine installation, one space has been transformed into a private interior with areesh roof and mats, multilingual local papers and a satellite feed of Korean broadcast television, recontextualised by a single contemplative voice that ponders the forces that have brought us here.

This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 12