Man has always been questioning reality. What is reality? What is the truth? Reality versus the imagined, versus the dream. The prevalence of the mass media, technology and the internet has plunged reality into a mesh of information.

Korean artist Yoo Hyun Mi articulates her reality and her dreams through her installation work, “Puzzled Cloud”. Facing reality and the realm of dreams, the presence of consciousness versus the state of unconsciousness.

Hyun Mi represents this combination in a minimalist approach. Just as how reality and dreams are opposites like the front and the back or the real and the unreal, she hangs clear pieces of jigsaw puzzles in the air. No front, no back. No wrong, no right. Any piece could fit another. There is no correct bigger picture to piece together. The fragments stand as a collection. Their narrative is not an issue.

Instead of a grid of chaos, the hanging pieces in their random movement and position create a subtle chaos that shimmering in green hue at night.

At the bottom of this puzzle cloud, is a staircase made up of puzzle pieces. Leading to no where but the clouds, perhaps, just as how humans attempt to make sense of their life, piecing together fragments to create meaning and direction, they are but futile attempts. The beauty is in their randomness. The pieces hanging above are beautiful in their own way.

Part of the Esplanade‘s public artwork outreaching programs, it attempts to make art more assessable to the public. Judging from the crowds mesmerized by installation, while taking photos of it with their mobile phone cameras, puzzled clouds has managed to capture the imagination of the people.

Yoo Hyun Mi “Puzzled Cloud”
Date: April 28th – July 10th, 2005
Place: Esplanade, Theatres by the Bay
Address: 1 Esplanade Dr, Singapore 038981
Tel: +65 6828 8377
https://www.esplanade.com