Translated Vase_2023 (2023)

The Seoul-based artist Yeesookyung is best known for her Translated Vase (2002– ) series reconstructed from discarded ceramic fragments.

When Korean ceramic masters create traditional vases and destroy the ones with minor defects – in order to keep the rarity and value of the surviving pieces – Yeesookyung collects the shards. She puts the destroyed pots back together as a threedimensional jigsaw puzzle and covers the cracks in gold.

Her sculptures echo the Japanese philosophy of kintsugi, in which broken pottery is repaired with gold highlighting cracks as part of the object’s history rather than hiding them.

Yeesookyung’s work is also not about restoring the original form, but to celebrate imperfection and impermanence and challenge any conventional notion of function or beauty.