Jungyun Jang

Jungyun Jang is a fashion designer, video and performance-based text artist who has participated at Paris Fashion Week and Fashion Show Echoes of the City in Rotterdam, Netherlands. She has been published by DHC Newspaper and Metropolis M, both based in The Hague. Jungyun Jang describes her process as: “In the videos and images, the body moves between control and release. Movement becomes a way to hold vulnerability and strength at the same time. The work is about existing in between. Between being seen and hiding. Between honesty and fear”.

The fashion and costume-wares of Jungyun Jang are quite unique and have an appearance is if being a cross between Victorian dress and futurism followed by a thoroughly post-apocalyptic aesthetic. These garments are often revealing in some areas while concealed in others. In the videos we will find contemporary dance and models engaged in elaborate performative theatre, complete with speed motion effects. The futuristic appearance of the wardrobe is still based on tradition, as they were inspired by Han-Bok Korean design. Motion in the performative works is meant to exemplify Jungyun Jang philosophical poetry of noting “each of us bears our mountains, and only through repeated acts of movement can shed our burdens and embrace our experiences”. 

Guided by her teachings in Buddhism, Jungyun Jang approaches her works with guidance of ancient traditional Korean dances, performed by the actors. The gestures are symbolic and meant to specifically differentiate between the sacred and the mundane. Infused with video stills and photography, we will find poetic texts written by the artist. These conceptual musings contemplate on a distanced approach to life, relinquishing control to the elements. Such consistent descriptions almost have a celestial essence to them, relating our relative finite miniscule presence in the face of the infinite universe. These sophisticated fashionable and costume wears reveal a deeper understanding of form in relation to concrete ideation. In essence, these minimalist structures within the cloth portray an individual distance yet a collective connectivity, representing a harmony in contradiction. Such ideas are further conveyed in the performative video works. 

The Suffer Hill - It Was a Forest (pictured above) is a video / short film which exemplifies everything we have discussed about Jungyun Jang’s portfolio. This riveting piece of work is dramatic and haunting, the figures with their elongated garments appear distanced yet connected. They avoid eye contact with each other yet embrace in dance and solidarity. Such a piece speaks of the social gap within contemporary society. 

Containing wit and thoroughly integrative and interdisciplinary portfolio, Jungyun Jang exemplifies fashion as an elevated form of high art. By infusing dance, performance, and historical cultural Korean traditions, the artist creates a rich tapestry of fabrics which have poetic presence and inclinations. Through a guided purpose based on the written word and inspired by the performing arts, Jungyun Jang applies multi-dimensional conceptual aspects to fashion and costume design. These garments and their actors reveal a dichotomy between subtle prose and invasive intrusion, as their rhythm and movements invade our space but fall in complete synchronization and total harmony with one another.