[SEOUL] I don't think it's anything: Na Hyun

Na Hyun is an artist who has explored the intersections of human history and natural time, weaving together personal memory and collective narratives to reveal overlooked zones  of perception. In his work, history does not appear as a neatly ordered chronology but rather as a scene reconstructed from scattered events, minor traces, and the layered presence of those pushed to the margins. The flow of nature, forgotten voices, and stories left outside official records are brought into new relationships and reactivated in the present.

This exhibition traces the trajectory of Na Hyun’s ongoing practice of what he calls “historical interpretation,” presenting points where human and natural histories, memory and place, myth and reality intersect. At the centre of the exhibition stands a large-scale installation from the long-running project Finding Big Foot. Weaving together the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens in the United States with the May 18, 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea, the work connects events that occurred simultaneously in different parts of the world, drawing attention to figures and stories that have disappeared from official historical narratives. The monumental figure of Bigfoot appears both as a mythological image and as a trace marked by violence and resistance, posing a quiet but heavy question to viewers.

Also presented is the Formosa Project, which expands reflections on systems of balance and regulation between humans and the environment, presenting the artist’s research into the worldview and lifeways of the Taromak and Paiwan peoples of Taiwan. Here nature emerges not as a passive backdrop but as a living structure shaped by rules, memory, and communal order. Through plant collection, documentation, and research-based installation, the project invites viewers to reconsider how humans have related to the natural world.

Walnut Babel Tower (2013), part of the Babel Tower Project, invokes the histories of modern totalitarianism through references to Berlin’s Teufelsberg and Seoul’s Nanji Island, while examining the fragmentation of language, migration, and cultural hybridity. Composed of a wooden structure, archival materials, and interviews, the work functions simultaneously as a tower and a repository of records, visualising the intersection of multiple cultures and voices. Alongside this work, pieces from the Nanji Island Naturalized Plant Series extend these ideas further, reflecting on movement, settlement, ecology, and society through the lens of diversity.

The exhibition also features Arbol (2012), a video work from the project Na Hyun Report – About the Ethnic. Filmed in Cuba, the work combines a drawing performance with the historical context of Korean migration to the island nation and the labour surrounding sugarcane cultivation. Through this gesture, the video delicately reveals the layered and unstable nature of the concept of “ethnicity,” connecting the body of the artist to broader flows of world history.

Although the works presented in the exhibition originate from different times and places, they share a common exploration of the tension between human intention and the order of nature, between memory and oblivion. Na Hyun persistently collects and arranges seemingly insignificant objects, traces, and peripheral stories, drawing out the latent historical meanings embedded within them. His installations do not present a closed narrative; rather, they unfold as an expanding process of inquiry in which viewers move through the space, bringing their own memories and perceptions into the work.

Na Hyun’s solo exhibition ‘I don’t think it’s anything’ is held from 21 March to 19 April, and marks the first show to be presented after CHOI&CHOI Gallery Seoul’s relocation to Yeonhui-dong. Opening in a new space, the exhibition condenses the trajectory of the artist’s long-standing investigations while suggesting alternative ways of perceiving the relationships between humanity, history, and the world