SANGSUG KIM - Between Us - Precious Things Bloom III

Symbolic meanings: Mandarin duck

The Mandarin duck has long been regarded as a symbol of love, harmony, and fidelity. In Korea, a pair of wooden Mandarin ducks is traditionally exchanged as a wedding gift, expressing the wish that two people will share a life of mutual respect, companionship, and enduring happiness.

While this work draws upon that traditional symbolism, the Mandarin duck here represents more than the love between a married couple. It symbolises the relationships that shape our lives in all their forms. Family, friends, partners, and even brief encounters each leave traces that influence who we become.

Relationships have the power to transform us, to alter the course of our lives, and to give rise to new values and possibilities. In this work, the Mandarin duck becomes a symbol of companionship, mutual growth, and the quiet strength found in meaningful connections. It expresses the hope that the relationships we cherish will endure, and that the values born from them will continue to enrich and sustain our lives.

Symbolic meanings: Between Us - Precious Things Bloom

In this work, the ladder is not simply a device for upward movement, but a symbol of time unfolding in life. As we move through time, we encounter countless experiences and relationships, continuously shaping and reshaping one another. Relationships are not formed in an instant; rather, they gradually deepen over time and become an integral part of our lives.

The pair of mandarin ducks placed on the ladder represent these relationships. Traditionally associated with love and harmony, in this work they extend beyond romantic union to encompass all forms of human connection—family, friends, and the many encounters that shape our lives. Through relationships, we come to understand and transform one another, discovering new values and possibilities.

At the end of the ladder, the pillow represents a continuously forming human existence. The folds that appear on its surface are traces of time once inhabited—records of encounters, relationships, and the forces we have met along the way. The process of folding and unfolding becomes a metaphor for how human beings are shaped through lived experience and relational encounters, continuously changing and growing.

We are not completed beings, but rather entities constantly being folded and unfolded through time and relationships. Life is the record of these accumulated traces.

What underlies these works is not a fixed form, but a continuous process of becoming. Flowers continue to bloom, nests continue to be built, ritual poles continue their acts of invocation, relationships deepen over time, and pillows continually form new folds. Each element exists not as a finished state, but as an ongoing process of transformation shaped by time, encounter, and connection.