BIO

Born in Seoul, South Korea

[Eng]

Yidan Kim is an artist who uses olfactory materials and olfactory sense to create either intangible or tangible sensory imagery. The artist focuses on the sense of smell, which has been undervalued in the hierarchy of senses, exploring humans as sensory beings. She aims to provoke the expansion of sensory perception and cognition by emphasizing the sense of smell. She delves into the boundaries between human and non-human beings, or endeavours to shift the human-centric perspective to that of non-human entities, thereby focusing on non-material objects that exist beyond the realm of human perception.

Yidan Kim has studied Hyang do, a traditional fragrance culture in East Asia, and researched olfactory cultures and olfactory object-mediators worldwide, collecting olfactory materials. Drawing on incense-making techniques and fragrance oil perfumery, she manifests olfactory imagery synesthetically through sculpture, installations, and performances.


In the exhibition “Human Nosework Training”(2020), she visualized various everyday smells in the form of ‘smell balls’, randomly installed in space, proposing that viewers experience and train themselves to perceive smells between fragrance and odour by staying still, lying on the floor, or crawling around.
In collaboration with sound artist Haedong Lee, the performance 'Ecology of Death and Annihilation' (2021) reinterpreted the origin of art as ritual and ceremony. 
It depicted a synesthetic landscape through a contemporary ceremony that reconstructed olfactory and auditory elements.


[Kor]

김이단은 후각 재료와 후각 감각을 사용하여 무형, 혹은 유형의 감각적 심상을 만들어내는 아티스트이다. 그녀는 감각의 위계에서 저평가되어온 후각 감각에 초점을 맞추어 감각적 존재로서의 인간을 탐구하며, 감각의 확장과 그로 인한 인식의 확장을 촉발시키고자 한다. 나아가 인간과 인간이 아닌 것의 경계를 탐색하거나 인간중심적 시선을 비인간존재들의 관점으로 전이시키는 시도를 통해 인간 인식의 영역 너머에 존재하는 비물질적 객체들에 주목하여 작업을 전개해나가고 있다. 

작가는 East Asia 의 전통 향 문화인 Hyang do를 사사하였고, 세계 각국의 olfactory culture 와 olfactory object-mediators 들에 대해 연구하고, 후각 재료들을 수집해왔다. 
Incense 제작 기술과 fragrance oil perfumery 조향 기술을 기반으로 조각, 설치, 퍼포먼스의 형태로 후각적 심상을 공감각적으로 펼쳐낸다.

CV


Solo Exhibition

2020  Human Nosework Training | Seoul Art Space Seogyo | Seoul (KR)


Group Exhibition (selected)

2024  My Room Is  Another Fishbowl  |Westbournegrove Church  | London (UK)
2024  Sixth Sense | Standpoing gallery | London (UK)
2024  Rites and Rituals |Safehouse |London (UK)
2023  Lawless Imagination  | Rupturexibit  |London (UK)
2021  RE : Soil - Sand - Pebble | 2021 Korean International Ceramic Biennale|Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art  | Icheon (KR)
2021  Creating Moving Nature Together |Suwon Museum of Art  | Suwon (KR)
2021  Momentariness |117-8, Choryangsang-ro  | Busan (KR)
2021  Properties of Night | Yeon Nam-dong 245-33 | Seoul (KR)
2020  The moment  Group 8491 | Post Territory Ujeongguk | Seoul (KR)


Performance (selected)

2024  Exist, as an Object / Yidan Kim, Haedong Lee | Northside studio, dadada collective |London (UK)
2023  Ceremony For the Last Humanity / Yidan Kim, Haedong Lee  | Hangar Space Gallery , RCA | London (UK)
2023  Ceremony For the Last Humans / Yidan Kim, Haedong Lee | Mirror, Mirror on the Wall |IKLECTIK | London (UK)
2023  Line-Rhythm / Yidan Kim, Heejin Jang, Liyoun Kim |MINBOKJIN Museum of Art |Yangju (KR)
2022  Nowhere, haihm x OHHO with Yidan Kim|OHHO | Seoul (KR)
2022  Poetics of  the olfactory sense / Yidan Kim, Sono Kim|PACK WEEK 2022 |  Platform L | Seoul (KR)
2021  A ceremony for 2021|WeSA Festival 2021 TOUCH | L.A.D | Seoul (KR)
2021  Ecology of Death and Annihilation : A Ceremoy for Things that Wither|Oil Tank Cultural Park |Seoul (KR)
2020  The Moment ; rebuild / group 8491|Post Territory Ujeongguk |Seoul (KR)
2019  共鳴(resonance)/ Acoustic Audio Visual Group 8491| Yangtze River International Culture Industries Expo | Shanghai (CN)
2019  Scent & sound performance / Haedong Lee, Yidan Kim | Peters Burg Art Space, Loophole  |Berlin (DE)
2019  Scent & sound performance / Haedong Lee, Yidan Kim  | Màgia Roja HQ |Barcelona (ES)
2019  The Moment / Acoustic Audio Visual Group 8491|JeongDong Theater | Seoul (KR)
2019  The Moment / Acoustic Audio Visual Group 8491|Soorim Art Center |Seoul (KR)
2019  The Moment / Acoustic Audio Visual Group 8491 |Shanghai International Paper Art Biennale |Shanghai (CN)
2019  PEACE & LOVE |T. T. A | Seoul (KR)
2018  Incense ceremony |Yangminshan studio|Taipei (TW)
2018  Dokkaebi Play / group HaeDongSeoungGuk |getto alive | Seoul (KR)
2018  The Moment / Acoustic Audio Visual Group 8491 |Platform L |Seoul (KR)
2017  Dokkaebi Play / HaeDongSeoungGuk |studio LOG |Seoul (KR)


Project

2024  Everlasting Blink |multi-sensory installation | Royal College of Art | London (UK)
2019  L’air du temps - TOKKIKO SMELL TRIP (Sensory Meditation workshop)  20 times
2019  TOKKIKO CEREMONY 190728 |Studio Senggi  |Seoul (KR)
2019  TOKKIKO CEREMONY 190623 | ZakEunMul |Seoul (KR)


Release

2021  ECSTASIS / Rope Incense Kit |Collaboration with AfterJe*koff Seoul
2018  DOKKAEBI PLAY KIT / project group HaeDongSeoungGuk
2017  KALI DANCE / IJM


Olfactory Directing  / Design

2023  Museum X | Scent installation, directing |Sokcho (KR)
2023  Mouvement - Sculptural lines, Minbokjin| Scent installation | MINBOKJIN Museum of Art|Yangju (KR)
2021  dance performance / GUL, Hee-eun Jeong |Scent installation, directing |Seoul (KR)
2017  play / yeonhee702 |Yeonhee702 / Seoul (KR)
2017  play  / Studio Nanadashii |Theater Arko |Seoul (KR)


Workshop /  Teaching /  Lecture

2021  Creating Moving Nature Together|Making the Nature's Scents Workshop |Suwon Museum of Art  |Suwon (KR)
2020  Sensory expansion  training with Jeong ga Ak Hoe|VELOSO Hongdae |Seoul (KR)
2018  Traditional Kore an Incense class|Namsangol Hanok Village |Seoul (KR)
2017  'Scent of Nepal' lecture (7th Oct 2017)|Perfumery school SCENTORY |Seoul (KR)


Education

2024  Sculpture M.A.|Royal College of Art (UK)
2016  Communication and Journalism B.A.|ChungAng University (KR)


Grants / Awards

2024  Gilbert Bayes RCA Awards 2024
2023  Sumi Scholarship Foundation 
2021  Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture
2020  Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture


Certificates

2019  Tea Ceremony course |喫茶去 (kkikdageo) Tea Culture Institute  |Seoul (KR)
2019  'Incense Ceremony' course 13th|Korean Traditional Incense Cultural Association MUN-HYANG (聞香) |Seoul (KR)
2017  PerfumeryⅡ |Perfumery School SCENTORY |Seoul (KR)
2016  PerfumeryⅠ |Perfumery School SCENTORY |Seoul (KR)


Other experiences

2017  Studied Nepali / Tibetan traditional Incense Making |Kopan Nunnery|Kathmandu  (NP)