Made in China — xhdpwl.com

I grew up moving between China and Korea. Conditions that define me — such as nationality, language, and even my birthday — have always made my identity unstable. This experience, which cannot be reduced to a single answer, has become the fundamental question that drives my work. I explore the uncertainty and fractures arising from a borderland identity, and attempt to extend them to a social dimension. Instead of concealing or mending my instability, I reveal and record it, seeking new relationships and meanings through the process.

오예지 Yeji Oh 吴礼智
xhdpwl@naver.com

Made in China, 비누, 머리카락, 손톱, 밴드, 때, 유토, 5x84.5x57cm, 2025
Soap, hair, fingernails, bandages, dead skin, clay
photo © KyeongJin Nam

Made in China is a sculptural work that transposes the markers of "production" and "origin" from the language of the nation-state into the language of the body. Sealed within soap — an object that promises cleanliness and hygiene — are hair, fingernails, bodily fluid, blood, and a casting of part of the chest. The byproducts of the body and the sources of identity coexist within a single surface, while the smooth exterior conceals a record that can never be erased. "Made in China" is a country-of-origin label marking low-cost consumer goods, but here the phrase declares that my body itself was made in China.