IM Youngzoo (b.1982) is an artist who explores themes of superstition and rationality within Korean society through mediums such as video, installation, performance, and books. Her work often takes the form of travel documentaries that intertwine personal narratives with collective historical stories, blending documentary and theatrical styles.

IM contrasts the progress of scientific and technological advancements in Korean society with unresolved irrational beliefs, choosing not to argue for or against superstition as truth. Instead, she embraces its irrationality and uses humorous satire to critique the biases of science and rationality.

IM Youngzoo has been interested in the process of coming to believe in something. Rather than focusing on institutionalized major religions such as Buddhism, Protestantism, or Catholicism, she primarily works on everyday, popular beliefs often dismissed as "superstitions." 

Before starting a project, IM researches materials related to her topic of interest or visits the sources of rumors, engaging in conversations with the people there to collect stories and observe the environment firsthand. Based on this, she formulates hypotheses about the subject, studies its structures and relationships, and translates her findings into outcomes such as paintings, videos, and books.

Since 2016, the artist has been exploring superstitions surrounding the natural object commonly found in daily life—stones. The Rock and Fairy (2016) project, undertaken as part of this inquiry, is based on the stories of people who believe that stones possess special powers.

This work began when the artist, during her research on stones, discovered the phenomenon of folk beliefs merging with secular convictions in modern society. She became interested in the moment when a simple material like a stone gains strange abilities and takes on a new image as it becomes imbued with human belief.

Through this process, IM Youngzoo’s focus expanded to include meteorite and gold-hunting clubs. These groups, which engage in unprofitable and persistent activities to search for gold and meteorites, led the artist to hypothesize that such club activities related to natural objects serve as an alternative quasi-natural religion. Rather than being part of modern culture, these practices perpetuate folk beliefs in a contemporary context.

The artist discovered unique belief structures within the stories of people who follow ancient and contemporary superstitions surrounding stones, ranging from small pebbles to massive rock formations like Candle Rock. She reinterpreted these narratives into forms such as video, installation, and painting.

Among these works, the video piece Rock and Fairy (2016) documents her journeys with meteorite exploration and gold panning clubs. By recording their expeditions and conversations, she restructured the material into a “fantasy documentary.” 

Meanwhile, her book ODD ROCK FORCE reconstructs these stories in written form, adopting a scientific framework similar to qualitative research methodology. This approach records the presence of superstitions that exist outside institutionalized systems. Through this work, the artist highlights the vitality of “superstitions” that cannot be fully explained by scientific and rational methodologies like geology but undeniably persist in human belief systems.

The video work Aurora Reflection (2017–2018) uses the green of a green screen—a tool for image compositing—as a central metaphor, meditatively capturing imagery from Candle Rock to cosmic landscapes. Green screens, employed in creating composites that make the false appear real, serve in this video as a symbol of the mechanisms that construct belief.

The video intentionally exposes the green edges revealed in the gaps between fragmented images of Candle Rock. Two channels, progressing with slight temporal dissonance between image and sound, eventually synchronize through a screen adjustment, at which point the video transitions into the vastness of outer space.

The green light in the video begins with the edges of the green screen, revealed through image fractures, and expands into an unknown, energy-like green form in the cosmos.

The interconnected imagery of Candle Rock, the green screen, and the universe, linked through the mediating green symbolizing “belief,” blurs the distinctions between natural, technological, and scientific objects. This suggests that within the reality of belief, these categories become ambiguous.

The video work Princess Yoseock (2018) draws inspiration from the story of Princess Yoseock, the daughter of King Muyeol of Silla and the mother of a child by the monk Wonhyo. Despite her historical significance, she lived in Yoseock Palace and was remembered only as "Princess Yoseock," without a personal name. 

Based on the tale of Princess Yoseock and Wonhyo, the artist weaves together various modern narratives circulating online, including the "Hong Kong Granny Ghost"—a ghost story popular among Korean children in the late 1980s and early 1990s—creating a new story through this blend of past and present folklore.

Set 1,500 years after the recording of Princess Yoseock’s story in Samguk Yusa (Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms), this video unfolds as a tale of a woman (Princess Yoseock) who begins to hear tinnitus after following a stranger on the street and a man (Wonhyo) who embarks on a journey to cultivate Dibba-sota (Divine Ear), a superhuman ability to hear distant sounds. The two meet at Soyo Mountain, where their paths intertwine. 

The video incorporates fragmented metaphors and symbolic scenes, questioning the nature of belief underlying these stories. By blending past and present narratives, as well as seemingly scientific concepts with implausible tales, the work creates a nonlinear structure. It explores the persistence of beliefs that, despite the passage of time and societal changes, remain deeply embedded and difficult to erase.

The 2021 video work Waiting M explores beliefs and anticipation surrounding the end of the world. The video is composed of images, sounds, and stories exchanged by individuals who met online while waiting for the apocalypse.

Prophecies like apocalyptic predictions have captivated humanity for centuries, despite their uncertainty. In the late 1990s, Nostradamus’s prophecy that humanity would perish before the turn of the millennium stirred global anxiety. In Korea, a pastor claimed that on October 28, 1992, the world would end, and the faithful would ascend to heaven.

This belief gave rise to doomsday adherents who awaited the rapture, discarding attachments to life and treating existence as a temporary waiting room before the eternal life to come. Yet, the world did not end, nor did eternal life begin as prophesied.

In 2020, the world faced an unforeseen catastrophe: a global pandemic. Amid the seemingly unending pandemic, the artist recalled the countless promises of past apocalypses. Waiting M was a project born from the artist's experience of conversations with five creators—musicians, scientists, novelists, historians, and artists—scattered across different countries during the pandemic, reflecting on ways to endure a time without a promised end.

In her new work 미련 未練 Mi-ryeon (2024), the artist imagines the dimension one would travel to after death. Presented last year at Perigee Gallery, the work consists of interconnected 2-channel videos and a VR experience. In an independent space, as a viewer uses the VR device to search for their grave, the scenes they experience are linked in real-time with the 2-channel video shown in another space.

As a result, no one can view the entire experience all at once. The viewer either experiences a single space within the divided boundaries or moves sequentially between different spaces. This exhibition, unfolding like a performance, connects with themes of boundaries and movement through time and space, encouraging viewers to imagine new dimensions of existence.

IM Youngzoo’s work explores the process and reasons behind how people come to believe in something, and how these beliefs are transmitted across generations. The artist delves into the very structure of belief and brings its existence into sensory form. In this process, the mysterious phenomena and unbelievable stories the artist focuses on serve as a medium and driving force for imagining alternate dimensions beyond what is visible to the eye.

“Actually, I think belief occurs in every field. Yet, in the field of religion or superstition, there’s a tendency to treat it like an irrational world, the outer world.

So, in the field of science technology, which is believed to be a rational world, I discovered the archetypal method of belief attempted for long time, and began intersecting the two fields.” (IM Youngzoo, MMCA Goyang Residency Goyang Artist-in-Residence Interview, 2021)

IM Youngzoo majored in painting at Hongik University. Her major solo exhibitions include " LiDAR LiDAR Lead me to my grave" (2023, Seoul Art Space Geumcheon, Seoul), "M" (2021, Outsight, Seoul), "Human/I" (2021, Hall 1, Seoul), "Ghost White (#F8F8FF Opacity 75%) 幽靈白" (2020, Gallery Chosun, Seoul), and "AEDONG" (2019, Doosan Gallery New York).

She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including "Maniera" (2023, Doosan Gallery Seoul), "Sunset Valley Village" (2021, Art Sonje Center, Seoul), "The Phenomenal Transition" (2021, Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan), and "Diplopia" (2020, ARKO Art Center, Seoul).

Her works are housed in the collections of the Seoul Museum of Art, Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, and Doosan Gallery. In 2024, IM Youngzoo was awarded the Frieze Chanel Award and the Amant New York Research Residency Program in Spring 2025.

References

• 임영주, IM Youngzoo (Artist Website)
• 인천문화통신 3.0, 임영주, 2018.07.18 
• 김홍기, “텍스트의 틈, 이미지의 구멍”, 2017
• 일민미술관, 특별 스크리닝 “말하는 돌: 임영주"
• 두산아트센터, 애동 (DOOSAN Art Center, AEDONG)
• EXiS, 극광반사 Aurora Reflection_임영주 IM Youngzoo
• 장지한, “믿음의 기술, 기술의 믿음”, 2021
• EXiS, 웨이팅 엠 Waiting M_임영주 IM Youngzoo 
• 페리지갤러리, 미련 未練 Mi-ryeon (Perigee Gallery, 미련 未練 Mi-ryeon)
• 국립현대미술관, 임영주 작가 | 2021년 국립현대미술관 고양레지던시 국내 일반 입주 작가 인터뷰영상 | MMCA Residency Goyang (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea(MMCA), Aritst IM Youngzoo Interview | 2021 MMCA Residency Goyang Artist-in-Residence)