Our Oily and Lush Vitality

Image: Jisoo Chung, 'Our Oily and Lush Vitality', 2026, Borrowed wine glasses, cooking oil, magnets, iron filings, Dimensions variable.

Our Oily and Lush Vitality is a site-specific installation activated through a participatory performance in which the artist and audience collectively engage with the work through the gesture of “cheers.” Using wine glasses, magnetic fillings, and cooking oil, the performance visualizes a codependent connection between each vessel. Emphasizing proximity and collective presence, Our Oily and Lush Vitality imagines connectivity and community as a kind of gravitational power, a force that binds bodies, objects, and social relations together through moments of gathering and exchange.

(I take out an iron skillet and place it on the table)

Cast-iron skillets are known for their exceptional heat retention, natural non-stick surface, and durability. Today, I cooked a fried dumpling in a cast-iron skillet for the first time. It was crispier on the outside and juicier on the inside. It was amazing. 

I take out a scale, and I measure the skillet. 

“5.5lb”(read the lb) 

Yet I never dared to buy one, myself because of its heavy weight. 

A single piece of cookware weighing over 5 pounds feels a burden for someone who was always prepared to move.

(pause while I am making 5.5lm iron fillings and move that to a pepper shaker).

//

I recently moved into a new home after moving four times within a year. After months of organizing, there was one last thing I didn’t know what to do with: a set of wine glasses. They took up so much space in my kitchen cabinet, rarely used, except when a group of people gathered.

“6 inches multiplies 9 inches.” 

54 square feet devoted to wine glasses feels excessive. 

//

I take out cooking oil, pour it on the skillet. 

I bring the skillet to the artwork installation and place it. 

When I was offered this residency, I wasn’t sure how I could afford to stay in New York. 

When a friend offered their room and another friend offered their room, and another friend offered me their something, the weight of the burden was divided, and carried, through multiple vessels. I decided to make art about it. 

I borrowed wine glasses from my friends in New York and engraved their names on the glasses tracing the handwriting of their names. Friends of a friend and other friends of a friend, multiple wine glasses accumulated in my studio. 

I've been thinking about value a lot lately. 

The value of oil. 

The value of gas.

The value of one's decision to cause a war. 

The value of a one-way subway fare.
The value of a breakfast burrito at Yafa Cafe.
The value of living in New York City.
The value of moving to the United States.
The value of leaving home.

The value of working for an artist I love.
The value of an interesting conversation over a beer.
The value of cooking dinner for friends.

The value of making a friend's gift when my show is about to open. 

The value of going to this art opening among so many other art openings.
And,
the value of this performance.

I realize—
( I realize—)

Value does not necessarily equal meaning.

//

According to a philosopher, Byung-Chul Han, Power is a relation. It is a continuous, an expansion of self, mediated by multiple alters. Power is also spatial. It opens a space that gives action its directions, which may also manifest itself in the manner of gravitation. 

which may also manifest itself in the manner of gravitation. 

//

Audience Participation 

//

Ferrofluid, is a magnetic liquid made of iron and oil. When a magnet comes closer, it moves, shifts, and changes its shape.

It was first invented in 1963 by NASA as a way to move liquid rocket fuel towards a fuel pump in a weightless environment- space. Because it can be moved by magnetic fields while remaining fluid, it has been used in electronics, engineering, heat transfer systems, and energy-harvesting technologies that no longer rely on rigid structures.

It is also being used as a way to remove microplastics from polluted water.

//

I wonder,

(I wonder),

If we can transform a solid to a liquid

I wonder,

(I wonder),

If we can move from one to another. 

I wonder,

(I wonder),

If we can cause a new form of energy.

I wonder,

(I wonder),

If we can create meanings out of values. 

(vortex for a while in silence) 

Perhaps, (Perhaps)

Rather than art, it is about relations.

Perhaps, (Perhaps)

Rather than art, It's about a way of living.