2023
Installation with a red bean tea-sharing ceremony
When I was a child -maybe around two or three years old- we lived with my grandmother.
The details are a bit hazy, but if I were to draw it from memory, it would look something like this...
There were two houses (her and ours) sharing a courtyard in the middle.
The kitchen was in my grandmother’s house, and we all used it together, as was typical of traditional Jeju house.
It was an independent space, with its own enterance that opened to the outside.
When we moved to our next house, the kitchen was much the same. It was an independent space at the far left end of the house.
We had to walk down the hallway to reach it, and it, too, had an entrance that opened to the outside.
The kitchen wasn’t large or luxurious, but many of my earliest and dearest memories were born there.
It was there that I cooked my first instant ramyeon, and where my mother and I flipped through a cookbook, trying new recipes just for fun.
On special occasions, when there was something to celebrate, the whole neighborhood would gather in the yard.
Someone would bring a pig from their farm, and we all shared the feast together. From that little kitchen came the side dishes we served, and the laughter and chatter of the neighborhood women as they cooked together.
Later, when we moved into a modern apartment, the kitchen was an open space next to the living room.
Instead of playing in the yard, we began to play in the parking lot.
Our house, which once had no locks, now had a digital door lock, and we had to punch in a code to come inside.
We no longer sat on the floor around a low folding table for meals —we started eating at a dining table instead.
The doors to the rooms were no longer wooden sliding ones with frosted glass and wooden patterns, but hinged doors that could be locked with a key.
Since then, we’ve always lived in modern apartments. The kitchen is still next to the living room.
We descend into the underground parking lot, then rise by elevator to the twelfth floor, where home awaits.
The nameplates have been replaced by numbers like 1203, and I no longer know my neighbors —not their names, nor the lives they lead, only the numbers that marks their door.