Join us for Garmenting artist Ayoung Yu's Dreams, an ongoing community engagement performance conceived with artist Nicholas Oh during the 2020 lockdown. Inspired by the traditional Korean practice of buying and selling dreams signifying omens of wealth or fertility, Yu began collecting recollections from loved ones, colleagues, casual acquaintances, childhood friends, mentors, and students. As the project progressed, she mailed back a small, hand-thrown porcelain bottle in return for each dream. This exchange provided a conduit to stay connected, an avenue to check in, to receive and offer care. 

For this performance, Yu will be joined by Oh, shaman Sung Park and musician Sehwan Kim in creating a dream-imbuing ritual. Yu asks participating visitors to give away a dream of their choosing, to be ritually archived in a porcelain bottle thrown by Shaman Park. In exchange, guests will be given an empty bottle to take home. This ongoing, drop-in activation will also feature a live performance of the janggu, a traditional Korean drum, and traditional Korean garments, including Yu's mother's hanbok, reimagined as a sacred object.

The performance is ongoing from four to six pm. Visitors are invited to drop in any time during their visit to the Museum.

About the artists

Ayoung Yu received her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University and BFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design. She was awarded an Artist in the Market (AIM) Fellowship by the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Gold Prize by the AHL-T&W Foundation, the Individual Artist Fellowship by the MidAtlantic Foundation of Arts and was nominated for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation’s Emerging Artist grant. Her work was also featured in the Christie’s educational annual journal. She has exhibited at venues such as Fredric Snitzer Gallery, LeRoy Neiman Gallery, Time Square Space, Jewish Museum, and Vermont Studio Center. Her 2020 digital video, Mourning Rituals, is currently on view in Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art.

Nicholas Oh received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. He has been an artist-in-residence at Pioneer Works, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Sculpture Space, and Shigaraki Cultural Park. His work has been exhibited at venues such as the National Building Museum (Smithsonian Institute), Spring Break Art Show, American Museum of Ceramic Art, Mills College Art Museum, Milwaukee Art Institute, and the RISD Museum. Nicholas currently teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design and Brooklyn College. He has previously taught at Greenwich House Pottery, Bennington College, Sacramento State University, and Oxfordshire Arts.

Shaman Sung Won Park is a Korean-American shaman based in Brooklyn, NY. Recently initiated as a shaman in Musok (indigenous Korean shamanism), Park is also a practicing potter, with a focus on altar ware and traditional Korean pottery. In Dreams, Shaman Park will be accompanied by Sehwan Kim, a multidisciplinary Korean-American artist, born and raised in Queens, NY. He has spent over 15 years studying and practicing traditional Korean music. He is a skilled janggu player and has performed at several community gatherings and Korean shamanic ceremonies.