Dr Young In Hong

Personal statement

Dr Young In Hong is a reader in Textiles and Performance and a module leader in Mixed Media Textiles in Creative Arts Practice (former Contemporary Arts Practice). Since 2019, Young In has been leading a Material/Performing research group as part of the Art Research Centre (ARC), at Bath Spa University.

Young In is a visual artist working across the mediums of textile, drawing, installation, sound and performance. In her work, unique inventions in sound and movement combine in new ways with investigations of the image; its history and its reinvention. This can be seen in the way she incorporates found images that document the human cost of Korean modernisation in the movement of living bodies and in how her textile work invents new iconographies for our time. She is interested in the potential of the artistic sensibility to uncover stories hidden underneath the surface and traverse different languages to propagate a shared sense of ‘equality’ that cuts across generations, nationality and species.

Despite sewing being traditionally a domestic craft, Young In is exploring it as an innovative art technique. The fact that the embroidery and patchwork is carried out by both machine and hand is a further means to reinterpret third world female labour through an artistic expression. In Young In’s textile practice, there is an underlying question regarding practices and conditions in the global textile industry and its economic hierarchy. For her performances, Young In works in collaboration with art institutions, performing artists as well as young women.

Young In has been nominated for the Korea Artist Prize in 2019, has presented work at among other institutions; the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, the Korean Cultural Centre, London, Turner Contemporary, Margate, La Triennale di Milano, Gwangju Biennale, ICA London, Block Universe Festival, the Grand Palais, Paris and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris and Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

Academic qualifications

• PhD, Fine Art – Goldsmiths, University of London
• MA, Fine Art – Goldsmiths, University of London
• BA, Sculpture – Seoul National University

Professional memberships

• Higher Education Academy Fellowship (FHEA)

Areas of expertise

• Art textiles
• Performance
• Fine Art