Q. Why did you select feet? Our bodies also have faces and hands.
A: When you look at someone, the first thing you see is the outline of their body. Faces are an overwhelming part of our body because of our consciously and unconsciously changing expressions. Compared with this, expressions of the feet are not oppressive. Hands are the most active parts of our body. Their movements are very delicate. By contrast, feet are very inactive. However, feet are the only body parts that sympathize with the ground. Feet feel the ground by being the nearest to it; they are in concert with it; they harmonize with it, feeling its positive and negative energies. So feet are anonymous. They are body parts that accept patience, destiny, and affliction. Shoes, as extensions of feet , signify death in Korean traditional thinking. They are the symbols of circularity, of becoming familiar with the land. They connect existence with nonexistence. Shoes are placed on a corner of the road from life to death. People seeking to drown themselves first take off their shoes, in a rite of farewell to the world. Shoes are also placed alongside rice offerings for the deceased. We don’t gift shoes to loved ones. Shoes are a memory of disappearance and loss. They are the outer layers of being. They are metaphors of nonexistence and secession. Therefore, we can find the outer layers of metamorphosis, connecting existence and non-existence, more easily in the feet than in the hands.
