JAYI KIM

SPACE 1

Exhibition Dates : 6 - 18 JAN 2026
Opening Reception : Wed 7 JAN 2026, 6:00 - 8:30pm

In a society driven by speed and competition, what people need most is rest. Having lived much of my life without rest, I was eventually confronted with cancer, and since then I have begun to listen carefully to the signals sent by my body and mind. Through exploring various forms of rest, I have been searching for what truly suits me, and since 2017 I have been developing the series “Skill of Rest&relaxation,” which focuses on the importance of rest in a rapidly moving world.

My latest work, Skill of Rest &relaxation  : Heterotopia, is about spaces of rest. Drawing from Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia—a space that performs the function of a realized utopia, an ideal place that doesn’t exist in reality—I began this project with the question: Could such heterotopic spaces be places where rest becomes possible?

Jayi Kim (born in 1982, South Korea) is an artist based in Gwangju. She received her BFA in Printmaking & Media from Chosun University and her MFA in Art & Space from Kingston University London. Kim’s practice began with an exploration of her own modes of rest, through which she identifies and visually records two “languages of rest”: static rest and dynamic rest. In parallel, she continues to investigate and collect the resting methods of others, integrating them into her artistic research.

JAYI KIM

Skill of R&R(rest & relaxation) ver. heterotopia

Mixed media

dimensions variable

NFS