The brutal reality of non-Korean labourers entailing mistreatment and oppression wasn’t directly presented through the imagery of this artwork. Rather, the neutral gaze and the partial depiction of a whole scenery hindered audiences to acknowledge the gist of these drawings. As growing up, I have started to be aware of how I used to look at fragments of an entire issue and not to put effort so as to see what is beyond the presented parts. Thus, via the cropped image and the sharp drawing style, I attempted to challenge the viewers to envision the reason why the figures are posing like that in the artwork; I hoped the audiences will pay attention to the subjects’ reality.
Including this work and a series of drawings titled ‘Sleeping’, I used the sketchbook that has been kept intact from my childhood. By drawing on my childhood sketchbook, I aimed to contrast the wickedness of such an issue and the innocence that is resonated through the aged sketchbook.