Misdelivered Letter

2024-ongoing

The Misdelivered Letter addresses domestic violence. I grew up in a dysfunctional family, subjected to my father’s abuse since childhood. In 2022, I stopped avoiding his fists. A bruise blooming on my eyelid became the first blueprint of this work. But as I focused on physical wounds, I confronted a limitation—how easily such work could fall into self-pity and depression. I began searching for a more delicate approach, one that could evoke shared memory instead.

So I turned to my mother’s story. She endured the same violence alongside me, and at the same time, she was the reason I couldn’t leave. Knowing she had no family of her own, I understood that my leaving would mean abandoning her in pain. I felt guilty for wanting to escape. Caught in a tangle of conflicted emotions between us, I flailed for a long time before I chose literature and photography as my tools of resistance. To live through reality while still speaking out—this artistic act became a kind of compromise. I couldn’t leave, not yet. But I had to speak.

This project offers an alternative perspective on survival. Rather than legal retaliation or physical revenge, I chose quiet—perhaps passive, perhaps hesitant—ways of protecting and revealing. Is this weak, even foolish? Will this work remain unresolved as long as the violence continues? Where does healing begin? I continue to ask. And like the dull ache that lingers in my cheek, I remain uncertain of the ending.

Martha was the last known passenger pigeon, a species that went extinct in 1914. In the 18th century, their population was so large that it could darken the sky, but reckless hunting and slaughter led to a dramatic decline.
The Cincinnati Zoo in Ohio attempted to protect the species by housing a pair of pigeons, but the species became extinct after Martha’s death. I saw a parallel between this tragic extinction and the reckless abuse of the vulnerable.

Shifting, 2024, Undergraduate Thesis Show, The Seoulitium, Seoul, Korea

Misdelivered Letter, 2024. 100-page handmade photobook, 19x15x4cm, chipboard, paper, glue, prints, fallen leaf, and plastic bag, edition #1/1.