Artist Yeon Ju created a world between reality and fiction through an ongoing project titled Wearable Food. Intrigued by the unexpected textures and characters of food ingredients, the artist reconstructs and reassembles them into ‘clothes’. After being photographed, she adds digital modifications as a another layer, creating a mixture of reality and fiction. Gaining online popularity, the food dresses were considered by some as actual clothing, while others recognised them as mere image manipulations.
The series is a play on ambiguity, one that questions the authenticity of the images we’re bombarded with on a daily basis via social media. “In this visual-centered epoch, what do we realize as real, and what would be the standard of that judgement?” the artist asks. “Hemmed in between a great many images made through many different stages and processes, the images are a mixture of reality and non-reality.”
Yeon Ju is based in Seoul. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions worldwide, and belongs in the private collections of Korea’s National Museum of Contemporary Art, Konkuk University, Venta Korea and more. Visit her website for more of her work.
Images © Yeon Ju / with permission