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Overview
Since 2012 Yona Lee has developed installations of stainless steel tubing that extend and interlink to create complex structures that fold, bend and respond to the exhibition space. These site-responsive installations borrow from the visual language of barriers and handrails - often incorporating everyday objects including beds, umbrellas, lamps and tables - to draw attention to the frameworks, both literal and figurative, that shape our interactions with public and private space.
The stainless-steel tubes that Lee uses belong to a universal system found in trains, buses, airports and all sorts of other public environments around the world, often used in designs intended to guide and mediate the movement of bodies through these spaces. The In Transit series began during Lee’s 2016 residency at SeMA Nanji in Seoul, where it was shown before traveling to Alternative Space Loop (also in Seoul). Since then it has been shown as In Transit (Arrival), Te Tuhi, Auckland, 2017; In Transit, City Gallery Wellington, Wellington, 2019-19; In Transit (double-function form), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2018-19; and In Transit, 15th Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, 2019.
Kit-set In-transit is a linear composition of stainless-steel tubing combined with everyday urban and domestic objects, including a bunk bed, umbrella, shower curtain, tables, chairs, bus handles and electric lights. The work is a kitset of component sculptural parts that can be reconfigured in various arrangements according to the site and context. It is comprised of five key sections, which Lee calls "Sentences".