Dahin Yoo

Bio

Dahin Yoo received her B.F.A. and M.F.A. degrees in Crafts from Sungshin Women’s University. She is currently a jewellery artist based in Seoul, South Korea.
Working primarily with metal, she explores experimental combinations of metal and various other materials. By repeatedly hammering metal into organic forms and hand-stitching colourful non-metal elements onto metal, she transforms the coldness of metal into forms that carry warmth and intimate narratives. Through these contrasting materials and processes, she seeks to evoke a range of emotions and foster a sense of empathy and connection with the viewer.

Statement

When I was young, I watched Sailor Moon, an anime about a group of magical girls who fought to protect the Earth. Watching them, I began to believe that I was from another planet, too, and dreamed of a universe of my own. I imagined that somewhere in the vast night sky, there was a star that belonged to me. This childhood fantasy became the starting point of my jewellery practice.

A star creates elements throughout its lifetime and releases them into the universe through a supernova explosion at the end of its life. These elements eventually came together by chance, giving rise to life and forming all matter on Earth, including human beings. Most of the elements that make up the human body were also created in stars. In that sense, I can say that I am, quite literally, a being who came from a star.

Drawing on the imagination and memories of my childhood, I have expressed stories about “myself” and “the world around me” through jewellery. I create shimmering colours by applying colored silver leaf to matte-finished silver surfaces. I drill numerous small holes into the metal, sew beads through them and combine different materials by hand, including PVC. Alongside these processes of making, I place great importance on the stories and narratives embedded within each work.

More recently, this interest has expanded from “myself” toward “the human.” What does it mean to live as a human being? And what does it mean to be human?

From the perspective of an age shaped by rapidly advancing technology, my way of working may seem rather irrational. I repeatedly hammer cold, rigid metal to create organic forms, and hand-stitch colourful non-metallic materials to complete the work. Yet it is precisely within this irrationality that I find something human. The traces left by the hammer, the slightly uneven spacing between stitches, and the movements of the hand that can never be perfectly controlled. I love these imperfections and contradictions because I believe they are the very traces that make us human.

CV