Educational project
Through the Looking-Glass
SUPSI Image Focus
Through the Looking-Glass links North and South Korea through an interactive installation fostering empathy between users who cannot communicate. Two divided boxes — transparent and opaque — symbolize openness and control, enabling shared understanding through crafted messages.
Through the Looking-Glass is an interactive art installation connecting two divided locations — North and South Korea — to foster empathy and shared experience among users who cannot otherwise communicate.
The project reinterprets the familiar 15×15×15 box by splitting it into two separate structures, echoing the political and emotional division that has shaped the Korean peninsula for more than 70 years.
The South Korean box, made of transparent material, symbolizes openness, visibility, and freedom of expression. In contrast, the North Korean box, constructed from opaque material, represents control, restriction, and suppression.
Carefully designed printed messages allow participants to perceive fragments of each other’s lived realities despite the communication barrier. Through this mediated exchange, the installation becomes a symbolic bridge that reflects on separation, censorship, and the enduring human desire for connection across borders.
The project reinterprets the familiar 15×15×15 box by splitting it into two separate structures, echoing the political and emotional division that has shaped the Korean peninsula for more than 70 years.
The South Korean box, made of transparent material, symbolizes openness, visibility, and freedom of expression. In contrast, the North Korean box, constructed from opaque material, represents control, restriction, and suppression.
Carefully designed printed messages allow participants to perceive fragments of each other’s lived realities despite the communication barrier. Through this mediated exchange, the installation becomes a symbolic bridge that reflects on separation, censorship, and the enduring human desire for connection across borders.