May 28 • Seongeun Lee
Research Note 01 : Beginning with Iron
Hands-On Project
Research Note 01 : Beginning with Iron
Through my knitted sculptural structures, I have been exploring the relationships and systems that shape human existence. In the Arrangement series, repeated units accumulate and organize into larger forms, approaching existence not as a fixed entity but as a condition continuously shaped through relationships. Recently, this interest has expanded toward the traces left by time and environment upon material surfaces.
I have recently begun researching rust and oxidation as material traces of time. In this study, rust is understood not simply as corrosion or damage, but as evidence of time embedded within matter. Iron slowly transforms through continuous contact with air, moisture, and duration, gradually altering its original condition. These changes are less about destruction than about the process through which relationships with external environments become recorded on surfaces.
This research particularly focuses on iron as a material that also exists within the human body. As a key component of hemoglobin, iron carries oxygen and sustains life through circulation. Interestingly, the same material that supports vitality is also highly vulnerable to oxidation. The iron that exists within the body and the iron that rusts in external environments are fundamentally the same material, yet they exist in entirely different states.
This perspective naturally leads to an interest in aging. Aging is often understood as decline or loss, yet it can also be seen as the accumulation of time through visible traces. Wrinkled skin, worn surfaces, and discolored materials all reveal the passage of time. Rust similarly becomes a visible condition through which duration appears on material surfaces, functioning as a language of time inscribed onto matter.
Currently, I am experimenting with transferring oxidized traces from chains, steel bars, and iron plates directly onto textile surfaces. I am particularly interested in the rust marks formed upon white knitted structures, exploring how stain, smell, texture, and surface transformation can visualize the aging of material. Rather than reproducing the appearance of rust itself, this process attempts to record the traces left by time and environment within the medium of textile.
Hands-On Project, 2026
Seongeun Lee
5
0 comments
Research Note 01 : Beginning with Iron
powered by
skool.com/hands-on-residency-3971
Hands-on Residency is a learning environment that nurtures critical reflection and situates artistic practices within wider cultural frameworks.
Suggested communities
Powered by