Urgent Conversations: Antwerp – Athens, Part IV: Dealing with Catastrophe, The Flow of the World
(c)image: National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), Athens
Bottari, 2005
[…] A Korean bottari is a bundle used to carry unbreakable household objects (clothing, books, etc.), food or gifts. It is quite common in Korean culture and is commonly associated with mobility – voluntary (e.g. salesmen, travelers etc.) or involuntary (e.g. refugees). It is also something Kimsooja is particularly familiar with both as a result of her national roots and because of her family being constantly on the move.
[…] In order to create the bottari, as with many of her other works, Kimsooja uses traditional Korean bedcovers, which she fills with fabrics, clothes etc., usually second-hand, since, as she says herself, they “carry” with them the smell, the memories, the desires, the “spirit” and the life of their erstwhile owners. The colours, the designs and the embroideries of the covers symbolize love, happiness, wealth and fertility, as they are traditionally used in Korea as bedding for newlyweds. For the artist, bedcovers symbolize the human body and the cycle of human life: birth, love, pain and death, since it is upon them that people are born, dream, rest and finally die.
- Eleni Ganiti (Kimsooja. Journey into the world, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 2003)