The Square and the Cross, Haus für Medienkunst, Oct. 14,2026-Jan. 10,2027

From the exhibition preface |

Division and dichotomy, borders and unbroken landscape, are equally central to the work of filmmaker Kwang-Ju Son. The lower galleries, with their intimate, darkened rooms suited to immersive cinematic presentation, host a representative selection of her work spanning over more than 20 years. Son is an artist and filmmaker whose practice spans fiction, documentary, experimental film, and video installation, investigating landscapes shaped by overlapping temporalities and the accumulation of historical, political, and spiritual forces. Her exhibition centres around The Holy City, an essay film and video installation that critically examines the symbolic and political significance of Christianity in contemporary Korean society. With a particular focus on the cross as a site of dispersion, the installation attempts to reveal how Christianity has become intertwined with different historical, political and social forces, and how these layers continue to coexist within the contemporary landscape. The project explores how the cross evolved from a foreign symbol to become deeply entrenched in the Korean cultural landscape, while becoming increasingly disconnected from its religious origins. The Holy City seeks to capture those fragile moments when salvation, faith, and enlightenment slip from their religious contexts – distorted, secularized, and repurposed within the ideologies of the modern world.

Across her films, she returns to a single haunting portrait: a society of “system-compliant human beings,” labouring in quiet devotion toward a future that remains uncertain. These portraits bear no judgment, rather fuelled with compassion – a tenderness for the world she observes. Her work is equally drawn to the way different temporalities bleed into one another: how people carry forward the structures and desires of the past, even as they are pulled, almost against their will, toward a horizon they cannot see. Kwang-Ju Son’s poetic cinematic projects moving between observation and speculation, explores how collective affects, beliefs, and memories condense into images and social formations.