Parallax: Minah Kim’s Exhibition at The Clay Studio
by Julia Yun
In summer 2025, I was thrilled to be selected as the IDEAL Intern at The Clay Studio in Philadelphia, PA. In addition to working with Jennifer Zwilling and Trinity Dubois on preparations for the organization’s projects around the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I closely studied ceramicist Minah Kim’s process and artistry as the capstone project for my internship. I filmed an Object Share video for Decorative Arts Trust members, which will be available soon. Below are excerpts from my essay about Minah Kim’s recent solo exhibition at The Clay Studio, Parallax.
Parallax is defined as the “effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions.” The effect is reimagined in Kim’s exhibition with ceramic sculptures positioned on either side of the titular piece, a white 3D-printed screen, where the viewer must look through the holes of a literal obstructive force that prohibits a clear view of the other side. As the viewer, we are the outsider perceiving the sculptures experiencing their isolated acts of grief and loss on the opposite side of the screen, figures that represent the other that we can not fully know.
The Parallax screen (figure 3) is composed of consecutively 3D-printed plastic tiles, and each tile is of a generally radial shape and made up of identical irregular patterns. Lines and shapes are moving, curving, and melting into each other at different angles. The sections were 3D-scanned from a model that Kim created with the ceramic petals that cover other sculptures in the show.
You are gone / I am not alone (figure 5) depicts a grieving parent from the torso up, holding a bundle of fabric covered in Kim’s ceramic petals. Without facial expressions and other affirmations that might provide more clarity on what the parent figure is feeling, gestures illustrate the ways in which they are grieving.
Julia Yun was the IDEAL Intern at The Clay Studio in summer 2025. She recently graduated from Drexel University.
1. From an interview with Minah Kim, “The role of petals in my work is for visual friction, so that it’s actually about the gaze–how to see our parallaxes. It’s [a] very important thing to make people think [on] how to see things. And it [the petals] started from a different path in the past, but now I’m actively using it as a visual friction that kind of holds on, creates, maybe controls how people stare at my work–even the speed at which people react to my work.”
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