An Installation “V” consists of cardboard sculptures which are five replicated parts of life-size V2 rocket, the first ballistic missile, and light-box prints which shows metaphorical connections between V2 and my personal history. In the exhibition at Swarm Gallery, Oakland, only three parts were shown because of the space limitation.

By using corrugated cardboard, the ubiquitous material in our everyday life, I deactivate the symbol of monumental power. Skeletal ruin made of cardboard is non-functional but it delivers the spirit of object. The sculpture is the skeletal ruin of violent soul we all share.

Through history, we continuously have been making something under the political and personal influences. The act, which is rooted in our fundamental desire, often culminates in violence. This time, I try to deconstruct the act of making by showing stripped structural recreation of V2. My experiment here is to see the viewer's psychological experience when they encounter deactivated ruin of making.

When the people in London heard the sound of V2 coming down from an altitude 70 miles high, the rocket had hit the target already. Fear for getting hit by V2 was tremendous, because there was no way to protect us from it once it came down. V2 was the most wasteful and inefficient weapon ever. V2 is perhaps the only weapon system to have caused more deaths by its production than its deployment. In London, statistically two people were killed per V2 rocket. An estimated 20,000 inmates at Mittelbau-Dora died constructing 5200 V2s. After all, V2 was big and beautiful.

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