Future Trace Practice
with IM Youngzoo and Martha Joseph
Géza, 306 Maujer
Amant New York, Spring 2025 Resident IM Youngzoo presents Future Trace Practice 미래 흔적 연습 , a half-hour performance lecture by Youngzoo followed by a response by Martha Joseph.
Drawing from Youngzoo’s ongoing research into human beliefs about worlds beyond reality—death, apocalypse, and outer space—Future Trace Practice explores how intergenerational knowledge is shaped and carried through movement and migration. The performance lecture focuses on weaving together narratives of taming time; empty graves; migratory birds, revered as sacred liminal beings; and examining how memory, longing, and the act of waiting intertwine with the rhythms of movement and displacement. Integrating video alongside web-based and textual materials, the performance merges speculative storytelling with embodied gestures. The lecture invites audiences to reflect on how we anticipate, construct, and sometimes misinterpret both the past and the future. The response by Martha Joseph will further explore Youngzoo’s performative gestures within the multimedia work.
This program is part of the For Your Reference series, where our artists in residence share and discuss key references informing their ongoing research at Amant. Amant programs are always free. RSVPs are strongly encouraged. Seating is first come, first served with some standing room available. Doors for Future Trace Practice will open at 6:45pm on Wednesday, April 16 in Géza, located at 306 Maujer. This program will be recorded. By attending, you consent to being filmed and acknowledge that the footage may be used for commercial purposes.
IM Youngzoo explores how superstition, belief, and religious faith take shape and are embraced within contemporary society through a range of media, including video, installation, performance, publications, and virtual reality. Her practice contrasts the desires embodied by modern science and technology with the persistent presence of irrational beliefs in everyday life, emphasizing the boundary where the two realms intersect.
By paradoxically juxtaposing spiritual domains such as religion and superstition with scientific modes of thinking, she foregrounds their unexpected similarities rather than their differences. Beginning with a single image or sound, Youngzoo delves into research that interweaves personal narratives with collective memory—drawing from tradition, history, politics, and science. Her works often traverse the supernatural and the (pseudo)scientific, invoking themes that extend beyond the reality: death, apocalypse, and outer space.
IM Youngzoo has been shortlisted for the Korea Artist Prize 2025 and Frieze x Chanel NOW & NEXT. Her solo exhibitions include 미련 未練 Mi-ryeon at Perigee Hall & Gallery, Seoul (2024); M, Outsight, Seoul (2021); Human/I, Hall 1, Seoul (2021); Ghost White (#F8F8FF Opacity 75%) 幽靈白, Gallery Chosun, Seoul (2020); AEDONG, Doosan Gallery, New York (2019); and Gristle and Synovial Fluid, Doosan Gallery, Seoul (2018), among others.
She has participated in numerous group exhibitions at institutions such as Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art (2024); One and J. Gallery, Seoul (2024); Doosan Gallery, Seoul (2023); Salihara Arts Center, Jakarta (2023); Oil Tank Culture Park, T4, Seoul (2023); Ludwig Museum, Koblenz (2023); Künstlerhaus Schloss Balmoral, Bad Ems (2022); Art Sonje Center, Seoul (2021); Taipei Contemporary Art Center (2019); Vietnamese Women’s Museum (2018); and SFMOMA, San Francisco (2018). Her work has also been featured in biennales and international festivals including e-flux Screening: Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul (2022); Anyang Public Art Project (2019); Busan Biennale (2018); and CROSSROADS (2018).
