Snake-Rice

Snake-Rice proposes an intuitive speculation about the green rice field landscape of the Korean peninsula and its undulating and contoured topography. Snake-Rice suggests a productive ambiguity between these two worlds (generic and specific), emphasizing the emergent formal qualities of the work in its increasing organic proliferation (the rise of snakes) while at the same time grounding it in a specific cultural and geographic territory (Korean rice fields in form of snakes).

Snake-Rice consists of 11 shimmering aluminum pieces that are assembled by means of lateral combinations. The sculpture was fabricated by using three different MDF molds that repeat three and four times. Each mold consists of two different parts that were CNC milled on two sides and subsequently assembled with wooden rods. The models were also used to cast aluminum through a process of sand-casting in a small foundry outside Seoul. These pieces were then polished, assembled, and installed on the sculpture park site, located in a valley of densely grown foliage and adjacent rice fields. Snake-Rice is situated on a subtle slope and anchored to a 0.5-meter-deep concrete foundation that prevents the sculpture from sliding downhill during the intensive Korean rainy season.