Sadong 30: The Animistic Domestic in the Work of Heague Yang

Chambers, Paula ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8245-9880 (2025) Sadong 30: The Animistic Domestic in the Work of Heague Yang. In: Going Feral: Speculative Approaches to Animism in the Arts. Curating and Interpreting Culture . Vernon Press, Delaware, United States, pp. 73-94. ISBN 979-8-8819-0322-0 (In Press)

Abstract

In 2006 artist Haegue Yang installed a series of sculptural works in an abandoned house in Incheon, South Korea. Yang produced and installed highly considered, and sympathetic artworks in response to, and in relation with, the temporal and material realities of this space. The dilapidated house had for many years prior to Yang’s installation, been home to the kinds of feral fauna and flora that inhabit the spaces vacated by humans. Yang did not attempt to eradicate the traces of these non-human dwellers but rather sought to illuminate their occupation and the temporality inherent in the processes of decay, through carefully placed objects that led visitors from room to room in a manner that prompted humble contemplation. Building on Tim Ingold’s (2011) exploration of animacy as material reciprocity, this chapter analyses Sa-dong 30 as an artwork that through its object-to-object relationality subtly questions the nature of belonging (or not belonging).

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