Installation view of “Proxy State” ©Primary PracticePrimary Practice presents a solo exhibition
“Proxy State” by Heaven BAEK, on view through February
9.
Heaven BAEK (b. 1984) has focused on the
(in)tangible spaces and times shaped by individuals’ relationships and
networks, as well as the (in)visibility of narratives that emerge from them.
Her work often critically examines the ideologies of documentation and
representation, engaging with the nature of media. To do so, the artist
traverses micro-communities and national frameworks, constructing platforms
that embrace individual voices submerged beneath official narratives.
Installation view of “Proxy State” ©Primary PracticeIn this exhibition, BAEK investigates a
specific audio archive housed in the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv at the Humboldt
Forum in Berlin. The archive contains recordings of Korean migrants in Russia,
captured during World War I at German prisoner-of-war camps.
By collecting, extracting, reinterpreting,
and editing these sounds, BAEK layers them onto today’s imagery. This process
evokes the structures of national ideologies and governance within the
intersecting micro- and macro-histories of migration. Ultimately, her work
confronts the extended present as a continuation of the past.
