(under construction)

Overhaul is the act of taking apart (a piece of machinery or equipment) in order to examine it and repair it if necessary and draws further meaning from its nautical denotation of slackening rope. Kim imagines a boat that needs to be overhauled while it is sailing. That is, whether it is possible to successfully fix the boat using the existing parts of the boat, which is already defective. The first wave of migrant workers from the Korean peninsula to the American continent came by way of Hawaiʻi on ships at the start of the 20th century. They were practically indentured workers on plantations of sugarcane (Hawaiʻi) and henequen (Yucatán), an agave plant which supplied fibers for the ropes used for vessels widely used in the 19th- 20th Century. Today due to the dwindled demands, there is hardly trace of these farmlands in the aforementioned areas.

[Written: May 12, 2023]

Overhauled Stories, 2023, open studio, Framer Framed, Amsterdam, the Netherlands; curated by Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide (in collaboration with Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven); courtesy of Artist (photo credit: Suin Kwon)