The contemporary artists Byron Kim and Kyungah Ham are currently participating in the group exhibition Unconstrained Textiles: Stitching Methods, Crossing Ideas, running through July 26, 2020 at the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (hereafter CHAT), Hong Kong. CHAT, which opened its doors to the public last March, is a part of the heritage conservation project of The Mills, formerly a textile factory owned by the Nan Fung Group. Committed to curating programs that introduce the heritage and aesthetics of textile arts, CHAT’s current exhibition showcases seven artists who explore undiscovered potentials of textiles within contemporary art discourse, breaking free of the stereotype that textile belongs to the domains of female artists, crafts, and design. 

As part of the exhibition, Kyungah Ham presents a colorful array of embroidery paintings including her signature SMS series. The process of sending camouflaged messages across the border to North Korea, where the hand embroiderers interweave the message stitch by stitch into the form of an embroidery painting, followed by an unforeseeable period of waiting for the embroiderers’ response, encompasses the realities of a divided nation identified by censorship, smuggling, confidentiality, and tension. Meanwhile, Byron Kim’s paintings of bruised skin employ textile techniques such as dyeing the canvas to deliver the tenderness and sensitivity of human flesh. Kim’s work discusses the ways that people interact with society by depicting the skin as an easily damageable yet recoverable layer connecting the inner and outer dimensions of the human body. A virtual Curator Tour, led by CHAT’s director Takahashi Mizuki, is also provided online (youtube.com/watch?v=SdY5L28r0tM&feature=youtu.be) for public access.