Kimsooja: Archive of Mind: Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation, Sydney, Australia

Kimsooja is a conceptual artist whose work spans installation, sculpture, performance and moving image. Textiles, either flat like paintings or tied as bottari or bundles, have been a constant in her practice. In Korea bottari, often made from colourful bedcovers, protect and conceal belongings for storage and transport. Associated with mobility and migration, each spherical bundle comprises its own world or planet.

With 'Archive of mind', Kimsooja invites visitors to collect a handful of clay, sit at the large work surface, and empty their minds of distraction; to sink into the experience of forming a ball of clay between the hands, rolling and wrapping it into itself like an infinite bottari.

The process transforms simple, everyday actions into moments of meditation and transcendence. As each sphere is completed, it is added to the table, forming an organic arrangement that holds the imprint of each maker.

'Archive of mind' is accompanied by 'Unfolding sphere', a subtle soundscape composed of two sounds: the artist gurgling water and clay balls being pressed, rolled and colliding with one another. At some moments it recalls a distant thunderstorm, at others, a burbling stream.

Purchase with funds provided by the Art Gallery of New South Wales Foundation, Sydney, Australia, 2018.

Courtesy of Kimsooja Studio. Image copyright AGNSW, Christopher Snee.