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Hanji Towers originates from a childhood memory of visiting mountain temples with my grandmother, where I would stack stones and make wishes. This personal experience connects to a broader tradition in which stone stacking, often found at village entrances or in mountain paths, functioned as a collective act—each individual carefully adding a stone while respecting the wishes of others.

The work reflects on how this gesture, once rooted in shared belief and communal presence, has shifted in contemporary contexts, where stone stacking has re-emerged through social media as an aesthetic and individualised act. By translating these references into sculptural forms made of Hanji, the project examines how meaning, intention, and value are transformed over time.

The paper, shaped into stone-like structures, embodies a tension between fragility and permanence. Through this transformation, Hanji Towers considers how acts of accumulation—whether physical or symbolic—carry memory, belief, and changing cultural interpretations across different temporal and social conditions.


Hanji paper, Mixed media

Hanji Sculpture: Sun Lee
Photo: Yuta studio

Exhibited:
Enseoul gallery 
Amsterdam, The Netherlands,  January-February 2026

Amsterdam Fashion Week x Hyundai Motor  
Amsterdam, The Netherlands,  September 2024

Kazerne
Dutch Design Week 2023
Eindhoven, The Netherlands, October 2023

A letter to Nature 
Culture Station Seoul 284
Seoul, South Korea, April-June 2023