JungJung Land is a land where everybody is welcome. Everyone follows each other and their identities slowly merge. Values looked up to in this world are to have good ideas, to live true lives, and to have great abilities. JungJung Land is my representation of the world we live in now. Social media has turned our lives into something that we can't really own. Only a few selected parts of our lives are shown after being filtered and edited. People glamorize their lives, usually by following what other people do. The experience our generation has had is homogenized. Individual identities without uniqueness overflows. Showing your true self on social media means making yourself vulnerable. But why? Isn't social media to show who you really are?

Interactive Textiles Exhibition

Personal work, Interactive exhibition hosted by AMPRSND Studio

#Good Idea #True Life #Great Ability collection is designed to express the parallel between the people on social media and the experience I had as a student in Korea.
While I was attending the middle school in Korea (2007-2009), my school system valued uniformity within students. We were required to wear uniforms, and many rules forbade us from altering our appearances; no make-up was allowed; hair color and length was regulated, and many more.
On social media such as on Instagram, I found that there are certain values that are considered "good". People want to eat the same things, go to the same places, and do the same activities according to these trending values. Through a platform that is supposed to be showing people’s true life, it was merging their identity.
I've noticed trends on social media that show off people’s life style: health, food, travel, fashion, friendship, etc. I thought these trends resembled my middle school motto, “to think good idea, to live true life, and to have great ability.”

Stoll Knit (Stoll M1 Plus)

Jacquard Weave (Pointcarré)

Footwear Design

Print design (NedGraphics)

Single-bed knit

Hand Tufting

Personal, RISD

I create (Hyun)JungJung Land, the land where anything could turn into a JungJung character. People, animals, fruits, trees, clouds, and many more! These characters could easily be seen as fun and playful, but their overarching power might represent more. JungJung Land represents how generalized the world is; homogeneous scenes that everyone experiences due to mass culture and globalization.

Tufting

Single-bed knit

Print design

Hand embroidery

RISD, personal project

Inspired by a famous ballet performance Swan Lake, I designed a collection of knitted shoes to let the wearer feel like a ballerina. I focused on the self-tying lacing system of the pointe shoes and how a ballerina stands on her toes to make herself look as if she’s floating during the performance. As a result, my designs incorporate self-tying straps that can be adjusted by the wearer, additional textiles are used to create light and floaty look, and colors and materials were chosen to mimic the theater lights.

Footwear Design

Industrial knit

Stoll M1 Plus

Single-bed knit

Personal project

The sweater was custom made for the website designer, Jon Rinker. In the process of discussing about the design, he wanted a design inspired by embroidered bomber jackets with playfulness. Once the drawing was finished, I chose tufting as a main technique because it creates a fun textural fabric. Also, tufting allows me to mix multiple yarns, and to draw with freedom without structural limitation. For the front, I decided to create four punchcards that can be combined to make a composition similar to the drawing on the back.

Single-bed knit

Tufting

hand embroidery

Jon Rinker

Tina (originally my "American name") is a character that represents myself. Tina is usually drawn with the hairstyle and the clothes I wear when I make graffiti. Without access to legal graffiti walls in Providence, I revived Tina in the form of knit garment. Combination of various knit structures and play with colors are used to bring the character alive.

Industrial knit

Stoll M1 Plus

RISD, personal project

I feel home where the toys are. I collect small toys. Although they might all be relatively similar in size and shape, there are so many variations within them: They range from solid colors to simple patterns; some represent cartoon characters or movie stars; large brands have even collaborated with toy brands. As these toys become more representative of the culture I live in, they bring more comfort to me. This jacquard piece is designed to bring the same feeling of comfort that I feel from these objects, but through the form of fabric.

Jacquard Weave

Pointcarre

NedGraphics

RISD, personal project

Recently, I came to realize that the connections between myself and my home are generalized. Because I am not physically in Korea, my knowledge and feelings toward home (Korea) have become superficial. Suddenly, the reality of not knowing much about my home, my friends, and even my family has hit me. Through this jacquard fabric, I want to communicate the emotion that I’m experiencing. In the pattern, faces are lost in my family photos, and the scenes from Korea and America get merged together in the background.

Jacquard Weave

Pointcarre

NedGraphics

RISD, Personal project

This sweater is made to show intermingling of different cultures. As a Korean living in America, I’ve experienced diverse cultures, which eventually shaped my identity. To express different cultures clashing into one, I created one composition that is made of different aspects. Within the overall color blocks, there are mixtures of organic shapes, see-through areas, and encased floating knits.

Double-bed knit

RISD, Personal project

When I was growing up, I spent hours and hours at an arcade in Seoul. The childhood memory about arcade games still remain as a topic I often share with my friends. After exploring various ways to knit and weave inspired by arcade games, I created a skirt with prints of toys to resemble a claw machine.

Dobby weave

Stoll knit

Single-bed knit

Stoll M1 Plus

WeavePoint

RISD, personal project

These series of knits are inspired by unhealthy eating lifestyles that people have today.

Single-bed knit

RISD, personal project

Inspired by a type of historic Korean painting, Sip Jang Sang Do (Paradise With Ten Lives), I recreated the paradise with fast food brand logos. The Ten Lives are sun, mountain, water, rock, cloud, pine tree, mushroom, tortoise, crane, and deer. In the print, logos of McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Chupachups, Lay’s, Burger King, Dominos, Sprite, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi are drawn as natural habitat where the fat animals live.

Silkscreen print

RISD, personal project

Nature has been around forever. Compared to that, man-made objects are just taking baby steps. I’ve created a book that would decompose over time. It was a 6 week project, made with fries from McDonald’s and vegetables from Whole Foods. This piece asks a question to the viewers: Why do artificial things last longer?

RISD, personal project