Kaja Clara Joo ︎
Sorcery
2025: Galvanized silver, microcrystalline wax, gelatine, cyanotype chemicals, brass, copper, calcium powder
“Sorcery” names the casting of lots, an attempt to alter fate. Under Japanese colonial rule Korean families were forced to surrender their brassware to be melted for military use. Most heirlooms vanished, only hidden pieces survived. Decades later, during the 1990s financial crisis, households again relinquished goldware to help repay national debt. Objects once tied to celebrate birth or mourn death were melted to gold bricks.
Using images of the media archive from the National Library this series follows the weight of memory and the afterlife of traditions stripped of their tokens. On galvanized silver, copper, and brass mirrors, photographic shadows almost dissolve, leaving faint outlines.
What struck me most whilst speaking with donors was not the loss of value, but of inheritance. As these anonymous gold ingots stay hidden in an unknown national bank's security deposit these moments remain like an open wound in collective memory.
