Young Joo Lee @ Ochi Projects

Young Joo Lee combines inspiration from her dreams with personal and political histories to create drawings, sculptures and films. On view in the downstairs gallery, Paradise Limited is a three-channel animation based on Lee’s year-long project about the nature sanctuary at the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Lee documented her research as a 25-meter scroll drawing, a reference to traditional Korean landscape painting, and created a sculptural scroll display to house the work, which provided the background for the film. In the upstairs gallery is Song from Sushi, an animated music video, written from the point of view of a sushi woman served on a sushi conveyor belt. She sings about the stereotypical depiction of Asian women as exotic sexual objects in media and cultural representations. Lee’s work is a glimpse into how our environments are not only outside of us, but how they truly alter our perception and inform our personal identities. Mine is on view at Ochi Projects through July 21st. 3301 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock.