Yiwon Park

Bio

Dr Yi Won Park is a Melbourne-based Korean-Australian artist and researcher whose practice explores cross-cultural artistic strategies between Australia and Korea. She earned her Master’s by Research at UNSW Art & Design (2014) and completed her PhD at RMIT University (2026). Her research-led practice investigates themes of transcultural spaces and Korean shamanic rituals through inter-disciplinary installations. Yi Won’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions internationally across Seoul, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Melbourne, including RMIT Gallery, Gallery of UNSW Art & Design and Artatrium and Firstdraft gallery. Her ongoing project continues to foster critical artistic dialogue between Australian and Korean cultural frameworks.

Artist’s statement

My interdisciplinary art practice about water and light is that formed my own ritualized creative response to place and its impact on my sense of identity. The Pacific Ocean, the physical boundary between Korea and Australia, defines my geographical and cultural identity, identifiable as a specific geographic entity, yet, being comprised of water, simultaneously formless and in a perpetual state of flux. Also, in Korean belief systems, water represents the boundary between the mortal world and afterlife. Water and ritual have become significant aspects of my practice since my parents passed away. Making work is the way I understand the boundary world I live in. It is to understand the relationship between the world and myself. For me the feeling of insecurity arises from the uncertainties that come with inhabiting not just the boundary between cultures but also between past and present,  physical and psychological, life and the afterlife.