off-site 2: Eleven Episodes, curated by Art Sonje Center, offers a multifaceted look into gender and queer narratives through the work of eleven Korean women and genderqueer artists/teams born between the late 1980s and 2000s. With distinct life experiences, perceptions, and perspectives, these artists refuse to confine identity and social norms to fixed categories. Instead, they question the structures of oppression repeated within systems, language, and representational conventions, rewriting their own narratives in the process. The eleven episodes presented by the participating artists each capture the points where the personal and the social, memory and history, as well as body and desire intersect, revealing stories of ever-changing and continually forming existences within the complex and fluid conditions of life.

The exhibition unfolds outside of Art Sonje Center, which has long explored the concept of placeness in a wide variety of waysby reflecting the historical context of its physical site and transforming previously unused interior and exterior spaces of the museum into stages for sculptural experimentation. The 2023 off-site exhibition extended into the backstage of the art hall, lockers, machine rooms, staircases, and rooftop garden—functional spaces of the museum that had, in the past, been less accessible to the public. off-site 2: Eleven Episodes, the second iteration of the off-site series, takes place at Kukje Gallery K2 and at (TOGETHER)(TOGETHER), both located near Art Sonje Center.

In this exhibition, placeness is understood not merely as a physical space but as something extended to the body, onto which social contexts are projected and inscribed. The body becomes a place where power, gender, history, and trauma are etched and repeatedly performed, revealing how individual identity is formed and functions within social norms and discourses. Within this context, the body operates as a site of performativity. This exhibition particularly focuses on non-normative performances of bodies and identities that resist the gender binary. Through practices and narratives that exist outside the heteronormative order, the exhibition seeks new sensibilities and languages that disrupt and reconstruct existing conventions.

The participating artists also use “devices” as a key means to unfold their respective episodes. In this context, a “device” may refer to a physical machine or apparatus, but it also includes a dispositif—a system that makes society function in a particular way. From using cameras to examine the relationship between the photographer and subject, to practices that subvert imposed social frameworks, the artists question fixed normative systems and unsettle their boundaries.

At Kukje Gallery 2, the exhibition opens with Cloud to Ground (2025) by Sojin Kwak. This video documents the discharge of a high-frequency current from a vibrating transformer placed on the roof of the artist’s studio, along with a hand reaching out to touch it. Through artificial lightning and the visual device of the camera, the work captures magical moments where sky and earth, technology and nature, as well as control and playfulness intersect. Chang Younghae’s I want to die because I want to touch aono / I want to hold aono so badly I could die (2021) reveals gender differences inscribed in the body, obsessive rhythms, and the tensions between belief and perception through the performers’ pair figure choreography and book readings, questioning the conventions of sexuality. Moon Sanghoon’s Genitals series (2019–2025) comprises a set of photographic works in which lesbian couples photograph each other’s hands, using their partners as models. The works reflect the emotional and sexual meanings embodied in this part of the body.

In Sol Han’s three video works, they explore what it means to create art as a young artist. Han transforms the structural elements inside an art school building into obstacles and carries out a race-like performance, which is then documented. Ru Kim’s Eye, nose, mouth, ear, forehead, chin, cheekbone, eyebrow (2021–2025) draws its title and content from the life-affirming phrases that are inscribed on Seoul’s Mapo Bridge, known to many today as the “Bridge of Life” because of the messages all along the structure that attempt to deter people from committing suicide there. By fragmenting parts of the human body into images using ropes, the work reimagines and reconstructs not only certain social symbols but also the human body. Jo Hyunjin’s sculptures highlights the tension created by sculptural elements leaning against and supporting one another through forms in which pieces of differing materialities stand balanced, while relying on minimal wall support and floor surfaces.

Yagwang’s Intruder (2024) begins with the old Korean taboo that warns against cutting one’s nails at night. From this starting point, the work questions the boundaries of queerness through characters who suffer from housing insecurity—even after death—and those who have chosen to inhabit queer bodies. Hong Jiyoung presents a series of images captured with an automatic film camera, including self-portraits, portraits of a lover, scenes from street protests, and traces of disaster, revealing intersections between the artist’s personal life and broader social contexts. Jaeyun Sung introduces a photographic series, The Guy Days (2025), which documents their own exploration of trans-masculinity through self-portraits and snapshots.

The exhibition continues with Ni-co-la-s’s Crossword (2025) by Jimin Hah, installed at (TOGETHER)(TOGETHER). This work intersects various identities and stories that share the name “Nicolas” through a crossword format, repeated images, language, and arrangements of color, all of which probes the boundaries of names, gender, and relationships in the process. Finally, Hiju Yoon’s The Silly Healy Milky Show (2023) follows a narrator who, having lost any sense of meaning in the real world, escapes into a virtual world and attempts to construct a new self, only to discover that this virtual world also involves the same mechanisms when it comes to loss and exploitation.

Such complexity of existence, which cannot be reduced to a single story, is interwoven and resonant in the diverse voices of the eleven participating artists. off-site 2: Eleven Episodes maps out a sensory terrain that crosses numerous boundaries—of identity, gender, queerness, the body, and place, as well as reality and virtuality—by connecting the many unique narratives of the artists. Amid oppressed structures and boundaries, the ceaselessly generated and disturbed movements of life present possibilities for new ways of thinking about gender, queerness, and existence, making these artists’ next “episodes” all the more anticipated.

*This exhibition takes place at KUKJE GALLERY K2 and (TOGETHER)(TOGETHER). Please refer to each venue’s address and opening hours.

KUKJE GALLERY K2
2025. 9. 2. – 10. 26.
• Address: 54 Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul
• Opening Hours: Everyday, 10am – 6pm, Sunday and Holiday 10am – 5pm

(TOGETHER)(TOGETHER)
2025. 8. 26. – 10. 26.
• Address: 74-18, Yulgok-ro 3-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul
• Opening Hours: Everyday, 1pm – 6pm

About the Artist
Sojin Kwak (b. 1993) works across a range of media, from video and performance to sculpture and installation. Kwak focuses on an interactive and action-oriented practice in which the photographer’s body, the device of the camera, the subject, and the location all influence one another. Her solo exhibitions include Cloud to Ground (Replace Hannam, 2025), Oh-my-god-this-is-terrible-please-don’t-stop (Seoul Art Space Mullae, 2022), Black Bird Black (TINC, 2021), and Axe and Dummy Heads (Insa Art Space, 2020). Kwak has also participated in group exhibitions at the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art (2025), OB/SCENE FOCUS (2024), and Frieze Film (2023). She was awarded the Sisley Young Artist Award in 2024.

Ru Kim (b. 1995) works primarily with performance, video installation, and text, focusing on the social function of art and the structures of violence. Kim’s practice explores sexual and racial violence rooted in imperial ideologies as well as sci-fi narratives. Their recent solo exhibitions include I KNOW WHAT I’VE DONE (TINC, former Myeongseong Church, 2024), a fist is a fist is a fist (Boan 1942, CHOI&CHOI Gallery, Space 413, 2023), and Ecotone: Capacity for Escape (Post Territory Ujeongguk, 2022). Kim has also taken part in group exhibitions at Millennium Film Archive (2024), Visaural (2023), WESS (2023), Coimbra Biennial of Contemporary Art (2022), Centre Rhénan d’Art Contemporain (2021), and Gyeongnam Art Museum (2021).

Moon Sanghoon (b. 1987) explores questions of boundaries, creating works that connect the voices of minorities with the sense of failure and the sentiment of vanishing things. Moon has held solo exhibitions that include No Future (Space Illi, 2021), Wish you were here (Yeon Rainbow x Osondoson, 2020), and We will always cross each other (Keep in Touch Seoul, 2019). They have also participated in group exhibitions at Art Archives, Seoul Museum of Art (2024) and Hapjungjigu (2019). In addition, Moon directed a performance titled Itaewon Transgender Club 2F (Doosan Art Center, 2025).

Jaeyun Sung (b. 1999) primarily works with photography to document people’s personal lives, which he weaves into narrative form. Currently, Sung explores his gender identity through work that addresses the bodies, desires, and histories of transgender individuals. Recently, he held a solo exhibition, Suk-Woong (Y Art Gallery, 2024), and participated in group exhibitions at CHOI&CHOI Gallery (2024) and Misungjang Motel (2023). Sung is the author of The Faces of Holiday (2021), a member of W/O F., and part of Imugi, a project that archives the history of transgender people and sex work in Itaewon (a neighborhood of Seoul).

Yagwang (formed in 2021, Kim Taeri [b. 1993] and Jeon In [b. 1995]) is a visual art duo collective that reveals representational languages aimed at subverting fixed notions of identity by working across video, installation, performance, and painting.  Their practice intersects gender with discourses on human rights, generations, and labor, often through the mediums of body and space. They have held solo exhibitions, including KIND (PS Center, 2024) and Lubricant (Windmill, 2022), as well as taken part in group exhibitions at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (2025), Museumhead (2025), ARKO Art Center (2024), and Insa Art Space (2024).

Hiju Yoon (b. 1997) works with moving images, including film and video, focusing on moments when personas inhabiting digital spaces exert political power. She has held both solo exhibitions, Seoul Angel’s Poem (Space Cadalogs, 2025) and The Silly Healy Milky Show (Zoeung, 2023), and participated in group exhibitions, including one held at Museumhead (2024).

Chang Younghae (b. 1994) works across video, performance, and installation as she focuses on how violence and desire are transformed and distorted through technology. For the artist, the body is a subject that is transformed and reconstructed through technology. Utilizing devices such as AI, cameras, and X-rays, Chang focuses on processes that convert the body into images, fragment it, or render it as an object. She has not only held solo exhibitions, including Glove box (AlterSide, 2024) and Surge Analysis (Gallery 175, 2021), but also taken part in group exhibitions and performances at venues such as Doosan Gallery (2025), ARKO Art Center (2024), and Windmill (2024).

Jo Hyunjin (b. 2000) primarily works with performance and sculpture, exploring fluid bodies and spaces through sculptural forms and performance stages that allow for flexible deconstruction and combination. She is particularly interested in states of hybridity and focuses on beings that embrace such conditions as part of their strategy. Jo co-produced and co-directed the performance Night Beast Troop (Windmill, 2025), and participated in the group exhibition Boot Camp (Windmill, 2022).

Jimin Hah (b. 2000) works with video and performance, exploring the multiple states of the moving body. Focusing on the body in motion as a site of both discipline and injury, as well as productivity and violence, Hah constructs narratives that subvert these conditions through a gendered perspective. They co-produced and co-directed the performance Night Beast Troop (Windmill, 2025). Hah’s video works have been screened at Suchi (2025) and entered in the short film competition at the Seoul Independent Film Festival (2023).

Sol Han (b. 1989) expresses issues related to autobiographical minority status—minority identity rooted in personal experience—through site-specific performances and video works. Han’s practice has addressed themes such as amateur artists, lesbian butch identity, underground sex work, and life as a precariat.

Han has held solo exhibitions that include Starry starry night (Show and Tell, 2020) and There’s always tomorrow (PLACEMAK LASER, 2019). Notable group exhibitions they have taken part in include those at Hapjungjigu (2024, 2018), Platform-L Contemporary Art Center Gallery (2022), Museumhead (2022), Ilmin Museum of Art (2020), W Stage Jeju (2020), and the UCLA New Wight International Biennial (2018). Han is also a member of Imugi, a project that archives the history of transgender people and sex work in Itaewon.

Hong Jiyoung (b. 1998) works primarily with photography, using the body as a basis to explore themes of queerness, violence, and sexuality. She takes photographs and writes on behalf of things that are invisible yet real. Hong has published a collection of photographs, Everything Flows (2022), and is a member of W/O F., where she is also involved in curatorial work. Her recent exhibitions include those at Museumhead (2024) and Frieze Seoul Live (2024).

Performance
Yagwang, Raw Proof
– Date: 8 pm, September 3
– Venue: Dosan Park

Yagwang, Raw Proof: Echo
– Date: 3:30 pm, September 4
– Venue: COEX

Younghae Chang, 𝄆 climb, fronthook, angel, invert, daphne, figure head, scorpion, fall, gemini, princess, chopstick
– Date: 9 pm, September 4
– Venue: KUKJE GALLERY K2

Ru Kim, a fist is a fist is a fist: Ignition
– Date: 5 pm, September 5
– Venue: KUKJE GALLERY K2

Jimin Hah, Nico’s Crossword Play
– Date: 3pm, September 6
– Venue: (TOGETHER)(TOGETHER)