Yujin Joung (DAE)

South Korea’s younger generations are struggling with impossible demands from society, that severely impact their well-being. Designer Yujin Joung investigated this obsession with perfection within her own family, tracing it to her grandmother’s trauma from Japanese colonial rule. She passed a desire for safety on to Joung’s mother, who grew up in poverty and stressed the importance of success for her daughter to obtain security. At EKWC, Joung press-moulded two enormous vessels based on Korean moon jars, praised for their ‘beautiful imperfections’. The fragile porcelain walls of the jars cracked when she opened the moulds, and each time she tried to mend them, they still continued to fissure and break under their own weight. To Joung, this is symbolic of life’s uncertainties and imperfections: there will always be cracks, no matter how hard you strive. Might as well accept them, and move on.