Lauren Kim
she/her
Los Angeles, CA, USA
Lauren Kim is a jeweler who seeks to articulate the entanglements between human life and nonhuman entities. By challenging the boundaries we put between our bodies and our environment, she hopes to co-create ways to better live in community.
“Fish Maiden is a piece dedicated to my journey of self-adornment. Inspired by traditional Korean knotting techniques and shibari rope-tying aesthetics, three aluminum fish are wrapped in a web of red string. The knots are interwoven with an offering of a seashell, delicate silver fastenings, and bells. The thin, almost delicate strings embracing the fish contrasts with the black leather cord of the necklace. The beauty of knot-tying lies in the graceful balance between the utilitarian and ornamental. This piece, as a form of decorative armor, represents an authentic expression of myself.”
What does being queer mean to you in relation to your material choices? Is it something you consider?
“I have been drawn to fish and marine aesthetics in several of my creative projects. I admire how fish move throughout the world in community, without boundaries, and fluidly resist categorization. The anthropologist Dr. Zoe Todd explores ‘fish pluralities’, which she defines as ‘multiple ways of knowing and defining fish.’ Similarly, there are multiple ways of knowing and defining queerness, and I hope my work encourages expansive thinking about identity and environment. When selecting the materials for this piece, I chose to use recycled aluminum fish tins because they reminded me of silver. I wanted to play with the illusion of material.
Knot-tying in Korean culture is used for both practical and decorative purposes. The red string and leather cord are sourced from Korea, and I use a variety of knots to integrate the different materials together. I intentionally chose materials that vary in thickness to contrast different applications of this technique. As a queer, Korean-American woman, I have encountered tensions while piecing together my cultural heritage and my individual exploration. I have found knot-tying as a meditative practice to meld these tensions."
"Fish Maiden", Aluminum fish molds, leather cord, seashell, silver fastenings, bells, red knotting cord, 4" x 12", 2024“I think of queerness in terms of systems and processes. Of course, the jeweler’s identity and the subject matter impact the work, but I believe that the more important facet is in the relationship between the jeweler and the subject matter. In that conversation between an artist and their work is where I find the most compelling representation of queerness. What questions are asked of the materials and processes? What unexpected doors does the work open? How are boundaries between mediums and aesthetics blurred and reshaped? Queerness is a refusal of using a normative aesthetic as an universal form of self-expression. It is an articulation of a deeply personal worldview that disrupts conceptions of beauty, knowledge, and power.
I don’t have a definitive answer to the question of if non-queer people can make queer art or if queer people can make non-queer art. However, I think that if queer artists and creators continue to challenge traditional ways of relating to the world, we can open up a future without these distinctive categories because we might redefine what kind of questions we are asking in the first place."
Is the work queer because the maker is queer, or is it queer because the subject matter is queer?
“Gifted to me by an ex, I could not find the origin of these aluminum fish tins. All I knew is that they were food-safe, from Thailand, and were made of aluminum. Part of the fun of this process was to repurpose these everyday, disposable tins into something special and beautiful. I have over 300 of these fish tins. In my next phase of work, I hope to make a series and larger scale pieces out of the fish tins."