About the Artist: Kimsooja

Kimsooja, born Kim Soo-Ja, adopted her nom de plume in 2003 when she picked a domain name for her first website; she was struck by the conceptual implications of combining her family name and given name, and memorialized the act as a conceptual piece titled A One-Word Name Is An Anarchist’s Name (2003). This musing on identity and its social implications is characteristic of Kimsooja’s performance works, in which she photographs or films herself in crowded city streets around the world with her back facing the camera. Read more.

Image: Kimsooja, 2004, Portrait photographed during sound recording of A Weaving Factory, Photo by Jaeho Chong, Courtesy of Kimsooja Studio.