This article was taken from the June 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Korean artist JeeYoung Lee transformsher Seoul studio into scenes more suited to a fairy tale. By experimenting with materials and perspective she turns the 3m x 6m space into sprawling fantasy worlds made out of stacks of oversized LEGO bricks, filled with steaming black and orange pipes (My Chemical Romance), or with birds swarming out of a window in the floor. "Once the installation is complete I take photographs," explains Lee. "When I have one I like, the whole thing is destroyed."
Each installation takes two months to build, from the initial brainstorm sketch, to gathering materials from markets and shops, to tearing down the structure. Only rarely does her work leave the studio: for an exhibit showing at the Singapore Art Museum until July, she constructed a three-metre-tall gingerbread house from wood, paper resin and Styrofoam in her studio, and had it transported to the site. Most of the time, all that remains is a photograph, which is as much a part of her work as the construction. Lee, 32, features in every shot taken with her Toyo 4x5 field camera: "I set up all the lights and position the camera angle, and then have a friend press the shutter button."
These photographs, and a reconstruction of one of Lee's installations, will be on show at the Naughton Gallery at Queen's University Belfast from June 4 until July 12. After that, she's considering a move into video. "I am thinking about hiring dancers and using them in an installation," she says. "I'm also interested in time-lapse -- if it's a photo, it's capturing a moment. But with video, I could create a story."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
