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JG: Hael Yxxs, you are in the process of making a form that truly provides a contrast to the natural site you have chosen on Mount Yeonmisan for the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale in Korea. This is a work comprises steel forms like the outline of a standard shipping container of our era.!

HY: Yes. You are right.  My project references the original size of a standard shipping container used in world trade shipping. It measures 6.1 metres long, by 2.4 metres wide, by 2.6 metres high. This cubic measurement is the most standard size of a container used for transporting goods in shipping for Asia, North America, and Europe. For my work with Yatoo, I have only created the edges of the container. So I am giving very only the minimum amount of information. The viewer or visitor has to construct or fill in the rest. 

JG: So it is a kind of sculptural sketch then.

HY: On the ground there will be an SOS sign. I will create this SOS out of mirrors. So the idea is that water from the skies will reflect on these ground placed mirrors. This model is of one of those huge containers used in the water, on our oceans, or on land. On the one hand, what is inside the container defines our living standard and on the other side, it is what destroys nature. So you enter into my container through nature and then you have a little open space and you see these SOS signs on the ground. It gives you a place and a chance to think about the two sides of this dilemma – of our relation to nature. 

JG: And the title you have given the piece  “ Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit “ again references quantification, measurement. So being in nature as it is,  your highly stylized, tensile construction sparks ambiguous feelings about nature and manufacture, and at one and the same time.

HY: Yes. And when you are inside the structure,  you become aware of the real volume that such a container actually occupies. 

JG: When one sees “ Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit “ in this forest interior, it becomes a landscape vista that highlights the huge scale of these containers, and inadvertently the economies of scale they actually play a role in as icons of the shipping and world trade industry. 

HY: Nature, and this mountain setting is a good place for this container form. The container painted white as it is, stands out, and is an absolutely uncommon thing to see in the forest. The dimensions of the forest on Mount Yeonmisan are quite small. And you have a large container space within this forest. Looking at it, you can imagine that thousands of these are moving around the world every day. It is amazing to think of this, of these huge volumes.

JG: This sculpture integrates quite well into the landscape of Mount Yeonmisan. It fits quite well. The white painted lines of your container are so linear and clear and readable.  As an artwork, it provides a sharp contrast to the flow of the topography, the landscape, the trees and hillside forms, and this makes it very visual, phenomenal.

HY: When you stand below the sculpture on the pathway stairs that lead up to it, it is like a field view you might have in a camera’s viewfinder. 

JG: Again this allusion to quantification and measurement that the container likewise suggests. The camera field view quantifies the landscape and the space in nature, or for that matter whatever you are photographing. The container also quantifies, in terms of its cubic space. And so this piece could be a metaphor for culture and nature – the relation between the natural and the manufactured. 

HY: Yes. This container object I have made at Yatoo stands for just one very small pixel of the total world trade traffic. 

JG: Did you make an earlier piece at Yatoo?

HY: Yes. In 1995 I made “ Flying Moving Hand “. It was a white rectangular swing. As it was a light white structure, it had the appearance of being suspended from the clouds. As a work of art it is so very different and absolutely contrasts “ Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit “.

JG:  Yes!  The open container is solid and structural, but most definitely on this earth. 

HY:  I do like linear structures, and straight lines very much. 

JG: People who live in nature will often like straight lines, sharp clean elements that contrast the environment of nature. People who live in the cities, on the other hand, like curved forms, organic shapes.  How ironic!

HY: Korea is a great culture in terms of its understanding of our relation to nature.

JG: Do you feel that Yatoo has contributed to your production in terms of providing these opportunities to experiment, to create and realize your sculptural ideas in nature?

HY:  I had a very different idea originally when I conceived the piece. I wanted to make a structure out of bamboo in a field. When they gave me this place to work, and changed the location where I was to work, I had to completely change my idea as a proposition. This work is about the contrasts between nature and rationality. 

JG: Humans always like to organize, to change things, and we seldom leave things as we are…. I guess this is a part of the human dilemma. 

HY: This place where I have set up my nature container is like a church in the woods. It looks like it has been standing on this ground for a very long time…

JG: The way you have left trees within the structure builds a dynamic. The interface between living trees, plants, earth and the structure itself, your earthy SOS message all makes it work. The message your Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit communicates is very much about what we as humans are doing to the earth.  It is obvious we have to evolve our ways of living to harmonize with the earth.  It’s an urgent message. 

Thank you so much. 
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