April 2 - May 25, 2024
Opening Reception on Thursday, April 11, 2024

Sandra Eula Lee: The Walking Mountain brings together sculptural installations that reflect the artist’s interests in labor, migration, and material histories. A Korean-American artist and daughter of immigrants, Sandra Eula LEE's (ACC 2009) exhibition centers on Portable Pond, a large installation referencing East Asian gardens, which traditionally provide a central reflective space to mirror back the view. Other works complement the “pond” in mixed media materials drawn from the confluence of the constructed and natural environments. In Seeds in a Wild Garden for example, Lee reflects on living and working in Seoul and Beijing, where she observed mountains of building materials accumulated as buildings were demolished. Yet occupying spaces in between were impromptu gardens created by neighborhood residents, signaling care and resilience. 

Lee’s dimensional installations are accompanied by drawings from her expansive series The Walking Mountain. The drawings represent carefully arranged mounds of rocks and formations inspired by the cairns Lee observed in the mountains of South Korea and the burial sites built in the landscape. The drawn and constructed forms mirror these different piles, representing simultaneous states of deterioration and becoming. The title of the exhibition was inspired by a Japanese Buddhist sutra by Dogen Zenji. Translating this text, Lee reflects on matter and migration: “Mountains’ walking is just like humans’ walking. The mountain’s walk may appear different from a human’s but we know they walk because their heads are in the sky and their feet are in the water.” 

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