Image: National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul
Kim Haneul has presented a live performance that transforms discarded foam containers from the Suwon fish market into new modular sofas, according to source material on the project. The work was created for the 40th anniversary of the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art and centers on the conversion of waste into furniture-like sculptural forms.
The project takes as its starting point foam containers that would ordinarily be thrown away. In the performance, those materials are reworked into 40 modular sofas, with the number aligned to the museum’s anniversary. The source describes the resulting pieces as symbols of renewal and reuse, positioned as inviting art objects rather than purely functional seating.
The performance is framed within the context of the museum’s anniversary programming, though the source material does not provide further curatorial details, venue information beyond the institution named, or a full exhibition schedule. What is clear is that the work joins live action and object-making, with the process of transformation forming part of the artistic statement.
By focusing on discarded industrial packaging from a fish market, the project places everyday waste material at the center of an art context. The modular sofas extend that shift: an ordinary consumable object becomes a repeated formal unit, and repetition itself becomes part of the work’s structure. The source presents the finished pieces as sculpture park installations, where they are meant to read as art pieces that invite viewers in.
The Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art’s 40th anniversary provides the institutional backdrop for the commission or presentation, but the supplied material does not specify additional participating artists, dates, or the exact display arrangement. It does, however, make the relationship between performance, reuse, and commemoration central to the project.
In the source description, the key facts remain the material origin, the live transformation, and the final count of 40 modular sofas. Those elements tie the work directly to the anniversary context and to the museum’s broader framing of renewal through reuse.
