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Current Exhibition



Between Worlds: Art, Shamanism, and Practice in Korean Diaspora


Join us for a conversation on Korean shamanism, the entanglement of art and spirituality, and cultural reclamation as decolonial practice from Dong Ji Collective's current group exhibition, ‘emerging light from the longest night’ at SWIM Gallery.
Jane Kang will present her newest ritual sculpture, “to split a moon in half: lesson of the silkworm”, Meesha Goldberg will perform poetry from her latest chapbook, “The Seed Is Waiting in the Dark”, and Seo Choi will present her newly released translation of Kim Keum-Hwa’s memoir, “I Have Come on a Lonely Path: Memoir of a Shaman”. Community conversation and Q&A will be moderated by Mattie Loyce.

Books available for sale!

Jane Kang is a Korean-American multidisciplinary artist based in San Francisco. In her primary discipline of ceramics, she converges traditional, narrative, and spiritual elements. The body is a vessel, and, like clay, holds memory both consciously and unconsciously. In her practice, she explores time, memory, cycles of transformation and contextualizes historical, personal, and cultural aspects of Korea and the Korean-American experience by channeling them through ritual, music, sculpture, food, and community. She is a member of two collectives, Dong Ji Collective, and plays kkwaenggwari in Kkiri Kkiri, a Korean-American percussion group rooted in the samulnori tradition. She is currently a Creative in Residence at The Ruby and teaches at The Pottery Studio.

Seo Choi is a Korean-American shaman, author, and the founder of Alpha Sisters Publishing. She is the creator of the Morning Calm Oracle, the author of Don’t Be a B*tch, Be an Alpha: How to Unlock Your Magic, Play Big, and Change the World, and translated and published Budoji: A Tale of the Divine City of Ancient Korea and Return: Korea’s Rituals of Death, Spirits, and Ancestors, and I Have Come on a Lonely Path: Memoir of a Shaman. She is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Meesha Goldberg is a Korean American poet and artist living in Virginia. Her experiences growing food, serving as an activist, and journeying to sacred places have made her a powerful advocate for the Earth. Her art crosses the boundaries of genre to both experience and express transformational repair. Performance, ritual, painting, film, and poetry merge in durational, place-based works and gallery installations that insist upon the re-enchantment of the world.

Mattie Loyce, longstanding curator, community advocate, and interdisciplinary artist has dedicated her career to amplifying the voices of emerging artists and advancing critical conversations across disciplines. Her curatorial work focuses on supporting emerging BIPOC artists, and honoring legacies of afro-diasporic and ancestral cultural practices. Her career as a curator, artist and afro-folkloric dancer spans across the United Kingdom, Afro-Caribbean, and United States.





Dong Ji Collective: Emerging Light from the Longest Night


February 17 - March 31, 2024


Swim Gallery is honored to present Dong Ji Collective: Emerging Light from the Longest Night, the first group exhibition of the Bay Area-based art collective Dong Ji (동지), comprised of current members Youjin Han, Jane Kang, Danna Kim, Nahyun Kim, Heesoo Kwon, and Sun Park. The exhibition includes seven new works across mediums, from painting, textiles, video, ceramics to participatory installations.


The word Dong Ji (동지) has two translations when read in hanja (Chinese characters used in the traditional Korean writing system): Dong Ji (冬至) is the winter solstice and the longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere; Dong Ji (同志) refers to a comrade and friend. The exhibition and its title takes on this double meaning, celebrating the longtime friendships built on reciprocity and collaboration while signaling the emergence of each member’s artistic practice that comes into dialogue in the gallery.


Dong Ji Collective: Emerging Light from the Longest Night is curated by Karen Cheung and organized in loving memory of collective member Julie Moon. Moon was a musician and composer. She received her BA from Cornell University and MA, MFA from Mills College.


The exhibiting artists and curator:


Karen Cheung 


Karen Cheung is a curator and writer based in Oakland, California. Her current research explores the ephemerality and effect of performance art in the context of audience participation. Her writings have appeared in Art Practical, Open Space, MARCH Journal of Art and Strategy, and Voices in Contemporary Art Journal. She has held various positions at KADIST, the Vancouver Art Gallery, De Young Museum, and Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, CA. She is currently Curatorial Associate of Media Arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Youjin Han


YouJin Han is a transcultural artist with roots in Korea, Guatemala, and now in the last several years in the Bay Area. Her experience in living across these languages, cultures, and communities has made her deeply interested in issues of belonging. Her colorful ceramic sculptures and immense installation reference these personal experiences while also acting as, in her own words, a physical diary that allows people to relate to her and unpack the often uncomfortable experiences of belonging.


Jane Kang


Jane Kang is a Korean-American multidisciplinary artist based in San Francisco. In her primary discipline of ceramics, she converges functional and sculptural pottery by incorporating traditional, narrative, and spiritual elements. The body is a vessel, and, like clay, holds memory both consciously and unconsciously. In her practice, she explores time, memory, cycles of transformation and contextualizes historical, personal, and cultural aspects of Korea and the Korean-American experience by channeling them through ritual, music, sculpture, food, and community.


She plays kkwaenggwari in Kkiri Kkiri, a Korean-American percussion group rooted in the samulnori tradition. She is currently a Creative in Residence at The Ruby and teaches at The Pottery Studio.


Danna Kim


Danna Kim is a textile and beading artist born and currently based in the Bay Area. Her works are inspired by her personal aesthetics, her Korean heritage, and her fluidity in gender expression and queer identity. Having formally studied and obtained her B.S. in apparel design and clothes making at SFSU, she enjoys creation of soft sculptures along with a variety of clothes including pet clothes and studying Korean traditional wear. Beading and crochet/knitting are practices that she self-taught and love to intertwine with her textile work. She has also hosted many workshops on her own and enjoys sharing her knowledge of crafts.


Nahyun Kim

Nahyun Kim is a Korean-American painter living and working in San Francisco. Having immigrated to the Bay Area at age 10, her works reinterpret landscapes that exist within her through memories, familial ties, folk tales and dreams. Kim’s artistic practice redefines and expands upon symbols of empowerment that transcends the rigidity of societal expectations, so that we can rise above. Kim earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University and has exhibited at Root Division and CounterPulse, among others. 


Heesoo Kwon


Heesoo Kwon is a multidisciplinary artist from Seoul, South Korea, currently living and working in San Francisco, California. Positioning herself as an artist, activist, archivist, anthropologist, and religious figure, Kwon builds feminist utopias in the digital realm that liberate one from personal, familial, and historical trauma rooted in patriarchy. She was recently awarded the 2023 San Francisco Bay Area Artadia, 2025 Eureka Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation and the 2022 50 Arts Commission for Media Arts from the Hewlett Foundation. Kwon earned a Master of Fine Arts at UC Berkeley, and is currently Assistant Professor in the Animation department at California College of the Arts in the Fall of 2023.


Sun Park


Sun Park is a visual artist and writer based in San Francisco. Sensory overload, disassociation, collective effervescence, stimming: Park responds to bodily sensations that signal the connection between internal and external environments, the porous boundaries where identity is formed and altered. Park’s work is informed by their experience with the white Protestant church, Korean shamanism, and Bay Area landscapes. Park holds an MFA from SFSU, was a fellow at Kearny Street Workshop’s Interdisciplinary Writer’s Fellowship, and has presented work at /room/, SFAC Main Gallery, and Southern Exposure, among others.