Yellow Cinderella, 2026

https://youtu.be/vuOKJzX5OKo

Yellow Cinderella, yellow dishcloth, robot and mixed media, approx. 20 × 15 × 12 cm (site-specific installation), 2026

Yellow Cinderella

My first solo exhibition featured an installation centered on a large yellow smiley-face ball. The image apparently left a strong impression, and I later heard that some curators referred to me as the “yellow smiley artist.” Yellow has long been a recurring color in my work. I have always loved it, and sometimes imagined that, if I were ever born again, I would like to return as a shining lemon.

I was drawn to the brightness of yellow and dreamed of owning a small, beautiful yellow motorbike. I imagined riding it from Vietnam through Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, before returning to Vietnam—an overland journey around the Indochina Peninsula that I once planned to undertake.

Years passed. I never got the yellow motorbike, and the journey remained an unrealized plan. The yellow objects I have left are a hole-ridden T-shirt once given to me by my ex-girlfriend, two pairs of yellow socks, and a few yellow dishcloths I had carefully kept aside.

It may seem strange to cherish a dishcloth, but I grew up with my grandmother and learned from her to use things sparingly. She lived in a time when material goods were scarce, and saving things was simply part of everyday life. We live in a very different time, surrounded by abundance, yet using less has become another way of living with the environmental crisis.

One day, I finally used one of those yellow dishcloths to clean my room. It felt like a small but significant decision. When I finished, the cloth was covered with dust from outside, fragments of eggshell, instant noodle crumbs, strands of my hair, and other remnants of everyday life. The yellow dishcloth had absorbed the traces of the life I had lived, and its bright yellow had become dull and stained.

The color I had once projected onto my life had become the color of reality. So, too, had my dream of traveling around Indochina on a yellow motorbike.

Just as the beautiful story of Cinderella—a girl covered in ashes who meets a prince and lives happily ever after—reveals itself as a dark fairy tale, my dreams, too, had already been covered in the ashes of reality.

노란 신데렐라 

첫 개인전은 노란 스마일 마크를 소재로 한 설치작품이었다. 커다란 노란 스마일이 인상 깊었던 모양인지, 나는 큐레이터들 사이에서 ‘노란 스마일 작가’로 불렸다는 이야기를 전해 들었다. 노란색을 좋아하기에 예전 작품에 노란 빛깔이 자주 등장했다. 가끔은 다시 태어난다면 반짝이는 레몬이 되고 싶다는 상상을 하기도 했다.

반짝이는 노란색이 좋았기에 예쁘장한 노란 모터바이크를 갖고 싶었다. 그것을 타고 배트남에서 캄보디아를 거쳐 라오스와 태국을 지나 다시 베트남으로 돌아오는 인도차이나반도 여행을 꿈꾸었고, 실제로 계획하기도 했다.

어느덧 세월이 흘렀다. 노란 모터바이크는 갖지 못했고, 인도차이나반도 여행은 계획으로만 남았다. 지금 내가 가진 노란색은 옛 애인이 선물한, 이제는 구멍이 나버린 노란 티셔츠와 두 켤레의 노란 양말, 그리고 아껴둔 노란 행주 몇 장 뿐이다.

행주를 아끼는 일이 이상하게 들릴 수도 있겠지만, 할머니 손에 자란 나는 무엇이든 아껴 쓰는 것이 습관이 되었다. 할머니가 살던 시대는 모든 것이 부족했기에 아껴야만 살아남을 수 있었고, 우리가 사는 시대는 넘쳐나는 물질을 조금이나마 덜 쓰는 것이 환경재앙을 늦추며 살아가기 위한 또 다른 방식이 되었다.

어느 날, 나는 그 노란 행주로 방을 닦았다. 아끼던 것이었기에 나름 큰 결심이었다. 방을 닦은 노란 행주에는 밖에서 들어온 먼지, 부서진 계란 껍데기, 라면 부스러기, 머리카락 등 내 삶의 파편들이 묻어 있었다. 내가 살아온 흔적을 뒤집어쓴 노란 행주는 더 이상 아름다운 노란색을 발하지 않았다.

내 삶을 투영했던 색깔은 현실의 색이 되었고, 노란 모터바이크 여행의 꿈도 이미 그런 색이 되어 있었다.

재를 뒤집어 쓴 소녀가 왕자를 만나 오래도록 행복하게 살았다는 신데렐라의 아름다운 이야기가 사실은 잔혹 동화였듯, 나의 꿈 역시 이미 현실의 재를 뒤집어쓰고 있었다.