Soomin Ham: In Gray – LENSCRATCH

© Soomin Ham, Diptych sequence

Soomin Ham is a Washington DC space photographer and multimedia artist whose newest work is a visible meditation on belonging, on discovering one’s method. I first grew to become conscious of her poetic, dreamlike work a couple of years in the past, after I noticed her “Portraits and Windows” mission, which used reconstructed compositions the place previous and current coexist, and different creative approaches for exploring grief, reminiscences and impermanence. The lack of her mom to melancholy drove dwelling the fragility of life, a theme vividly mirrored all through her work. Ham, who was born in Korea, initially studied to be a musician and her work has a lyrical high quality to it.

Her present exhibition, “In Gray,” shifts the main target of her work to displacement and id, a difficulty that many immigrants and different world residents are grappling with. After visiting Korea, she feels she now not belongs there. But she additionally feels she doesn’t belong within the U.S. This has left her wandering between her two worlds. She makes use of diptychs, black and white, juxtaposed photos and layering to inform the story of that wrestle.

© Soomin Ham, Diptych sequence

Here is how she describes the exhibition, which will likely be on the Multiple Exposure Gallery in Alexandria, VA. till Oct. 11, 2026.

Upon returning to Korea, the house I as soon as knew, I found that I now not belonged there. Too a few years had handed; reminiscences had light, and the place I carried inside me had modified. Yet within the United States, the place I now name dwelling, I didn’t belong there both. An outsider in each worlds, I wandered in-between—a grey space.

“In Gray” contemplates what it means to have two properties, but by no means absolutely belong to both. Each sequence of pictures is an introspective search via parallels and coincidence; fragments discovered within the landscapes from each halves of my id.

In the photographic diptychs, two locations meet throughout a continuum of absence. The in-between house embodies the gap felt upon returning to Korea, and the displacement of id over time. Each half of the diptych is a hint of the particular person I as soon as was in that place, earlier than I now not belonged.

© Soomin Ham, Diptych sequence

Trees seem as quiet companions.  They are metaphors for myself—bodily rooted within the land, but regularly altering with the world round them. White acrylic and conventional Korean black ink trace at East and West, the 2 sides of my id. Through layering and juxtaposition, landscapes overlap and dissolve, revealing the fragments of a cultural panorama carried inside. 

With every sequence, the exhibition slowly uncovers the misplaced items, the reminiscences, and the areas in between. What emerges is just not a transparent sense of belonging, however an acceptance of uncertainty and ambiguity. Perhaps my belonging is just not black or white, however the grey house in between.

© Soomin Ham, Diptych sequence

An interview with the artist follows.

Soomin Ham is a photographer and multimedia artist primarily based within the Washington, D.C., space. Originally skilled as a musician with a Bachelor of Music from Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, Ham holds a Master of Art in Photography and New Media from New York University and the International Center of Photography in New York.

Her work together with images, combined media, and multimedia installations has been exhibited extensively throughout the DC space, New York City, and Seoul, Korea. Ham is a recipient of the Visual Arts Fellowship from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and has been awarded a number of grants from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, together with the Individual Artist Fellowship and Small Projects Grants. A winner of the 2019 LensCulture Portrait Awards, her work has been featured in publications resembling Shadow and Light Magazine and the UK’s Black + White Photography.

Instagram: @soominhamartstudio

Website: www.soominham.com

© Soomin Ham, East and West sequence

This is an excellent exhibition. Congratulations. You are exploring an vital query dealing with so many individuals: what does it means to “never fully belong to either.” I additionally proceed to be fascinated by your use of bizarre parts and methods to disclose extra about your inner panorama and to create these visible poems. Can you speak a bit extra about the way you approached every sequence of pictures — Diptych, East and West and Window?

I approached every sequence in another way as a result of every displays a distinct side of my
expertise of “never fully belonging to either”— both Korea, the place I used to be born and raised, or the U.S., the place I now stay. In the Diptych sequence, I convey two juxtaposed photos taken within the U.S. and Korea collectively, permitting the house between them to change into not solely a spot of loss, but additionally an area the place each of my identities can coexist.

© Soomin Ham, East and West sequence

© Soomin Ham, East and West sequence

In East and West, I exploit bushes as a metaphor for myself—rooted in a single place whereas residing and altering in one other. I mix pictures with white acrylic and conventional Korean black ink, which displays the 2 sides of my id, by layering East and West throughout the picture. Similar to the Diptych sequence, I deliberately go away a niche between photos, suggesting a way of distance and the absence of a transparent sense of belonging on both facet.

© Soomin Ham, Window sequence, West

© Soomin Ham, Window sequence, West

The Window sequence is extra intimate and contemplative. I exploit the window as each a bodily and metaphorical threshold, permitting me to look outward at my environment whereas additionally trying inward towards my id. I layer pictures of the identical panorama throughout 4 seasons, photographed in each Korea and the U.S., permitting fragments of 1 world to overlap with one other. Through this layering and fragmentation, the pictures change into much less about specific locations and extra about my inside panorama. The refined grey emerges from the mixing of those two worlds. I selected these totally different approaches as a result of I didn’t need merely to doc my experiences. I wished to reconstruct how they felt—how reminiscence can overlap, fragment, disappear, and reappear. In that sense, the method itself turns into a part of the emotional language of the work.

© Soomin Ham, Window sequence, In Between

© Soomin Ham, Window sequence, East

© Soomin Ham, Window sequence, East

Although they’re totally different sequence, they created a unified narrative arc. Can you focus on {that a} bit.

Although the three sequence use totally different visible approaches, collectively they kind a unified narrative about residing between two properties. The Diptych sequence creates a dialogue between Korea and the U.S.; East and West explores the stress of being rooted in two totally different cultures; and the Window sequence turns the gaze inward and outward, reflecting on the expertise of seeing one world via the angle of one other.

© Soomin Ham, Window sequence, set up

“In Gray” appears to construct in your earlier work, which targeted extra on grieving, household and reminiscence. How do you see your earlier initiatives connecting with “In Gray”?

My earlier work has all the time been rooted in reminiscence, usually utilizing layering and fragmentation—each throughout the photos and all through the inventive course of—to bridge the previous and current. In Sound of Butterfly, I opened myself to the grief of dropping my mom. In Portraits and Windows, I repurposed my grandfather’s previous pictures, reconnecting them with my household historical past. In Recollections, I revisited moments and locations which have formed my journey of self-discovery.

In Gray continues and expands these themes, shifting from private grief and reminiscence towards a broader exploration of displacement and id. Rather than focusing solely on the lack of an individual or a well-recognized dwelling, I’m now reflecting on what it means to lose a way of connection to a spot and to seek out oneself between two worlds, looking for the place dwelling is likely to be.

©Soomin Ham, Recollections, set up

Is there anything you want to add?

I’d like to say “In Gray: Recollections”, the set up itself, significantly the wall that brings collectively ten works from Recollections and Revisited. I approached the whole wall as a canvas, arranging the pictures like fragments of reminiscence scattered throughout a panorama. Although the pictures come from totally different instances and locations, collectively they kind what I consider as a “memoryscape”—an area the place incomplete and overlapping recollections coexist.

Rather than providing viewers a set narrative, I wished to depart house for their very own interpretations. I hope the pictures invite them to maneuver via these areas and fragments, discovering their very own tales throughout the grey areas—formed by their creativeness, experiences, and private reminiscences.

©Soomin Ham, Recollections, set up