ARTIST

• Syncopation #5, 2025, three-channel 4K digital video and one-channel pottery light installation, color, sound, mixed media, 17min 21sec, dimensions variable.

• A smoke drawing for Syncopation #5, 2025, soot on watercolor paper, 42×30 cm.

Jung Yeondoo’s work examines time, memory, and history through photography and video. His latest piece, Syncopation #5, captures the intersection of human desire and the formidable force of nature, framed through the landscapes of the Gangneung Dano Festival. The piece is led by a music composed by Lim Ji-sun, Diaspora for Two Pianos, which reinterprets traditional Korean folk songs such as Han Obbaek Nyeon and Shingosan Taryeong, along with Met Again, Gukmun Dwitpuri, a song sung by Goryeoin* prisoners of war in World War I. (*Goryeoin are the descendants of Korean migrants who moved to the Russian Far East in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, only to be forcibly deported to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.)  
The performance features a piano that has not been voiced* to emphasize the absence of a refined ‘voice’, drawing attention to unspoken narratives. One of the pianos is filmed with its strings removed, creating a muffled, percussive sound resembling a heartbeat, which ultimately transforms into a glowing light contained within a ceramic vessel. (*Voicing a piano is a process that alters the tone or timbre of the piano by modifying the hardness of the hammer felts.)  
The video transitions from scenes of the Dano Festival to footage of wildfire-ravaged landscapes. The rice paddy planting in May is followed by people’s prayers, and the rice shared by people at the festival is fermented into makgeolli (rice wine) for ritual offerings. Through this imagery, the artist follows the journey of collective wishes and prayers embedded in the making of sacred offerings. 
To Jung Yeondoo, nature works in its own ways, regardless of how we want it to. While people express wishes and conduct rituals, nature remains unpredictable and beyond human control. The juxtaposition of hands in prayer with hands striking a silent piano underscores this theme, tracing the boundary between humanity and the natural world. By observing such gestures, viewers are invited to contemplate history, memory, and the unspoken narratives woven into the culture’s shared past.