FETISHRAMA[Fetish+Drama]

Do, Byung-kyu

Portuguese word feitico is the origin of the term fetish, which is classified as a form of sexual perversion in modern psychology, and means 'a thing that contains the mind.' Trees or stones were used as objects of worship in primitive religions, and dolls with the shape of human body were found in ancient Greek tombs. Such action is an example that illustrates the fact that human beings are receiving mental consolation by giving anima to various objects. Though the use of dolls was converted from sorcery to toys in modern world, they still function as the main body of empathy.

Sadistic imagination I experienced through dolls during my childhood was a secretive drama created only for myself. It was not just a generalized imagination of a child who dreams about a fairy tale or a utopia. My sadistic imagination was destructive, sexual and was full of thoughts about taboo. Paradox of the situation in which the position that must be taken by a child in the social system is entirely betrayed operated as the motif of my work. Such a contradictory situation is not only given through the doll but also internalized in the experience of animal cruelty in my childhood. Mourning for the very animal I killed myself as a harm-doer was in a situation that is even harder to understand than the cruel act itself. As I trace the mystery I committed, I compose the story through a metaphor of ambiguity and multiplicity that this phase of life contains.

With kidult-like disposition, I am fond of collecting dolls and toys. Strictly speaking, dolls mainly used for works are nothing more than creatures formed by synthetic resins, but they carry more important meanings than just resins because of their facial expressions and body actions similar to those of human beings. As I visualize the drama within my imagination that has no structural system by granting different symbolic meanings to them, I express the paradoxical situation revealed by egoism or social structure.