Today we’d like to introduce you to Bin Youn.
Hi Bin, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Whenever I draw the “line of flight,” it connects my dispersed dots. When I studied abroad in Paris, France, I fell in love with photography. After returning to my motherland, South Korea, I started learning more about it, participating in several programs and jobs. After having sour-sweet experiences, I applied for graduate school in the States to draw another “line of flight” in art. Exploring the outside of my comfort zones, I have made a plethora of dots in my graduate school, California State University Long Beach. I recently graduated Master’s in Fine Art from my grad school and am about to start another “line of flight.”
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
After having a year in California, I became nihilistic about art and life here. Before coming to this fantasy world, California, I dreamed of a better life, but the reality was not. I had to deal with many basic things that were easy to handle in my country, South Korea. Back then, I did not try to find the ways by myself. I was too weak and dependent on others wishing my difficulties in life could be solved with magic. So, I had a semester break and returned to South Korea, planning to move to Thailand for a better life. While staying in Thailand, I found that I had believed the wrong person for a long time and had a breakup, the biggest event in my life. After coming back to South Korea, I felt lost. Luckily, my aunt living in Vietnam invited me over to have time to steam off. I had time to revitalize myself. After returning to Korea, the pandemic happened, and I could expand my academic break to return to America. I started to work at Canada International School, teaching and supervising young kids. I did side jobs such as food delivery, online marketing, and private tutoring. Most of all, I learned to ride a motorcycle. It gave me an outlet to vent my overworking anger. I began to ride a dirtbike in the end. I learned a lot from riding a dirtbike as I fell a lot and stood again to ride it. This adventurous journey gave me the power to come back to the States and start another “line of flight.”
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a lens-based multimedia artist working mainly in photography and spatial video installation using light and sculptural forms based in Long Beach, California, U.S.A, and Seoul, South Korea. My work is focusing on sensory-based moving image installation, asking viewers to navigate in spacetime. My interest is toward the invisible interaction with light forms and space colors through bodily experience. My work also explores the ruptures of cultural disparities in the translation of languages.
I feel proud when I show and share my work with the public and communicate with them.
As a Korean living in California, I tried to learn more about the tradition of Korea and connect my hands-on experiences in my motherland. For example, I shaped my thesis show from my motorcycle tours in my motherland and her islands last summer and winter. Moreover, I used the principles of the Korean alphabet. Adopting those elements into my work makes different layers into my work.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
You never know before you experience it.
Risk makes stories and makes people stronger. That is what I believe.
I had many risk-taking decisions: living in Paris, France, having a breakup after nine years of a relationship, riding a motorcycle and a dirtbike, studying abroad in California, living in the States, and making art.
These risk-taking experiences are necessary to navigate the colorful layers of the world and meet more inspiring people. It is the key to opening up the potential of everything.
The more I took risks, the wider and deeper I felt.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.binyoun.com
- Instagram: o.binyoun.o
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/binyoun/
