Project Description
The artist photographed buildings along the Wilshire Corridor, then cut them out to create stencil-like silhouettes. These architectural cut-outs were layered with imagery from cities around the world, forming a dreamlike cityscape that stretches across the trainway walls—horizontal, sprawling, and distinctly evocative of L.A. County’s vast and diverse identity. On the high bay, maps are collapsed into a playful, abstract composition. As riders pass through the space, they are invited to pause and wander through this reimagined landscape where the rhythm of the city is reassembled through the lens of global connection and local imagination.
To inform her design process, Kim invited the public to share personal memories—new or old—about Los Angeles by sending her phrases that begin with the words “I remember.” Her concept for the community engagement was inspired by the artist and writer Joe Brainard who wrote an unconventional memoir in 1970 using only phrases beginning with the words “I remember.” The memories the public shared provided a collage of narratives and experiences that mirror Kim’s technique of collaging and layering her cut out photographic stencils to create a dreamlike cityscape.
Artist Statement
“I activate my images by cutting away photographic material and revealing the surfaces beyond their immediate picture plane. The process of excision provides an antidote that is both hostile and sympathetic toward the type of reverie the images—left to themselves—might belie.”
About the Artist
SOO KIM (b. 1969, Seoul) creates intricately cut photographic work. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Riverside, and Master of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts. She is Professor and Program Director of Photography and heads the Critic-in-Residence program at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. Her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, most recently at the Nicholas & Lee Begovich Gallery at CSU Fullerton, and is in the permanent collections of several museums, including the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She is the recipient of a Gutmann Photography Fellowship Award and a grant from the California Community Foundation.
Locations: Wilshire/La Cienega