Since 2012, Miji YOON has been living and working in France. Utilizing a range of media including performance, video, installation, and photography, her work persistently questions the subtle yet profound relationship between nature and human existence. She regards the landscapes around us as artworks created by an anonymous artist—nature itself—through the continuous inscription and erasure of time and history. Her early practice focused on capturing such traces through photography, and has since evolved into a more multidisciplinary and experimental approach.
Her photographic series Cœur de pierre (Heart of Stone), taken in the caves of Armenia, reflects the impressions she felt upon arriving there, as well as a deep-seated emotional sensitivity. Through the process of working, she encountered layers of memory and history beneath the stone surfaces. While the phrase "heart of stone" often connotes coldness and emotional detachment in Western culture, YOON's experience revealed quite the opposite. In the firmness of stone, she sensed vulnerability; within silence, she felt resonance. Seeking to visualize these hidden sensations, she transformed the stone images into photographic negatives, attempting to illuminate what lies beneath their surfaces. As the artist writes: "The title Heart of Stone is a condensation of complex emotions—a gesture toward the texture of existence, a feeling suspended between silence and resonance, and a quiet possibility of salvation nestled within." Through the image of stone, Miji YOON reveals the pulse of life embedded in the seemingly inanimate.
