Kyungah Ham, known for her series of embroidery works depicting the relationship and ideology of South and North Korea, participates in 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS (on view through August 4), a group exhibition held as an extension of a year-long online project of the same title. The project commissioned 52 artists and collectives from 31 countries to stage actions in historically unique locations throughout the world and share them with global audiences online from January 2018 to January 2019. The exhibition brings this rich collection into the Artspace galleries to address the social, cultural and political implications present in different regions throughout the world and considers how art as an action has the power to invoke change.

Ham’s Mona Lisa and the Others from the North (2015) departs from a fortuitous encounter with an embroidered Mona Lisa handcrafted by North Korean artisans. Enthralled by the question "in a hermit kingdom where only state-admitted art forms can exist, how will the iconic Mona Lisa be perceived by the North Koreans who have absolutely no prior knowledge of western art historical context and value?", the artist conducted a series of interviews with North Korean defectors, from which she documented extensive testimonies on life in North Korea, the escape, and settlement in South Korea. These interviews of the North Korean defectors center on the Mona Lisa and connect to the broader narrative of their experiences in North Korea, forming a new metaphysical and three-dimensional structure of Mona Lisa within.