Heejoo Kim is an applied artist and contemporary jewellery maker living in South Korea. Heejoo’s work is a reinterpretation of traditional craft art, expressing traditional techniques and philosophy with contemporary aesthetics.
What was the inspiration for your Steinbeisser pieces?
Seungmu, the Korean “monk’s dance”, is a traditional folk dance in which the performer wears a monk’s robe and a cone-shaped gokkal hat. Although it is no longer performed as part of Buddhist rituals today, its origins can be traced back to monks dancing as a form of religious ceremony. As in the scene from Cho Ji-hoon’s poem “Seungmu”, the figure in white gokkal, dancing with both sorrow and grace, evokes the deep enlightenment of a being who embraces the cycle of life and death and all the joys and sorrows in between. Inspired by this image, the Gokkal Bowl is intended to be more than a simple vessel for food; it seeks to become a medium that reminds us of the place toward which our spirit should aspire. Eating is, in itself, a form of practice.
This everyday act, repeated again and again, is not merely about survival but a time of tending to and disciplining both body and mind, a quiet ritual of gratitude and awareness toward life. Like the monk in Seungmu who, wearing the gokkal, dances out the joys and sorrows of human existence, this bowl symbolizes a humbled being that lowers itself, empties itself, and meets the world in silence.
Describe your work in 3 words!
Meditative. Light. Unusual.
What kind of materials do you use and where do you get them from?
I worked with traditional Korean hanji paper—originally used as flooring in ondol-heated houses—and traditional lacquer. I source the hanji and the lacquer from makers who still use traditional production methods.
Which conscious lifestyle choices are you making and are you considering any new ones?
I try to avoid using plastic as much as I can. I’m not at the stage of accepting major inconvenience in my daily life, but I consciously try to reduce my plastic use whenever possible. In my work as an artist, I also consider entropy and the life cycle of materials, so I’m generally reluctant to use synthetic plastics and gravitate towards materials that can age and return more naturally to their surroundings.
What have you rebelled against in the past and what are you rebelling against now?
Looking back, I was often critical without always knowing exactly what I was pushing against, I was just someone who questioned a lot. Whenever something was dismissed as “impossible”, I tended to think, “Why not?” Now, I’m quietly resistant to things that feel dehumanizing in everyday life, ways of thinking or organizing society that forget about human dignity and inner life.