South Korean artist Do Ho Suh has installed a replica of his childhood home above a road in London. Called Bridging Home, London, the installation sees a traditional Korean house and surrounding bamboo garden, which appears to have ‘fallen’ onto the Wormwood Street footbridge, a dual carriageway located near Liverpool Street station.
Suh’s first large-scale outdoor installation in the capital, the work reflects the artist’s own experience of moving across continents and between cultures and continues his career-long investigation of memory, migration, the multiplicity of the immigrant experience, and home as both a physical structure and a lived experience.
Speaking about the work Suh comments, “It is hugely rewarding to create a public work in London, my adopted home. For me, a building is more than just space. It is not only physical but also metaphorical and psychological. In my work, I want to draw out these intangible qualities of energy, history, life, and memory. While Bridging Home, London comes from personal experience, I hope it is something a lot of people can relate to.”
By modeling the design on the house he grew up in, Do Ho Suh’s aim is to make a statement about the migrant history of London, as well as to reflect his own experience of moving from one country to another.
The installation will remain in place for at least six months. It forms part of Sculpture in the City, a programme that sees sculptures pop up all over the Square Mile, and Art Night, an annual initiative that commissions site-specific artworks all over the city.