Crossings, 1992
Offset Lithograph
Edition of 58
30 x 22 in
Collaborating Printer: Bob Franklin
At the center of this print is Yong Soon Min's own body — her torso, arms crossed tightly over her chest in what reads as both self-possession and self-protection. Printed in deep purples and grays with sharp white lines, the image carries an almost electric charge, the negative rendering making the figure feel simultaneously present and exposed.
Arranged over the torso are three black-and-white photographic inserts that unfold like film stills. In the first, a hand hovers over the chest, about to make a mark. The second shows the word "HEART" being written onto the skin. In the third, the completed word — "HEARTLAND" — is revealed as another pair of hands holds Min's arms apart from her chest. Whether those hands are opening or restraining is left deliberately unresolved.
A fourth image, centered and in full color, returns to the crossed-arm torso. Projected over it is a map — a seamless fusion of North America and the Korean peninsula — collapsing geography into a single new territory. It is Min's own rendering of what it means to hold two histories in one body, and to resist the idea that identity is ever finished, fixed, or fully legible to anyone but yourself.
