House II was part of the group exhibition Hiraeth. In my work, the house often functions as a symbol of a person’s inner world, the stories, beliefs, and memories they’ve built around themselves.
With House II, I wanted to create a space that felt safe and reflective, where visitors could pause and confront their own sense of longing. Inside the installation was a desk with paper and a simple prompt: “What do you miss, or what do you long for?”
The work invited each participant to bring their own context, to step inside their personal hiraeth, and to recognize that even though our longings may be unique, the feeling itself is shared.
Hiraeth is a Welsh word that describes a profound, often bittersweet longing for a time, place, or person that may never be returned to, whether real or imagined. It is a feeling of nostalgia tinged with grief, rooted in memory and the inevitable passage of time.
The group exhibition brought together works by Lee Kab Jae, Kim Haesook, Yeo Sang Hee, Park Hyo Jung, Lee Deokyoung, and myself. Each artist explored different dimensions of this shared human experience, whether it be the ache for lost homes, the echo of past relationships, or the desire to return to a simpler or imagined past. These works grappled with the pain of not being able to go back, and the quiet recognition that time moves forward, change is constant, and memories often blur or fade.
Though “hiraeth” has no direct English or Korean translation, the feeling it evokes transcends language and culture. It’s something many of us carry quietly, a longing that connects us all.
Suné Horn 