Exhibition
2011 VoxHumana,Oxford,UK
Alcohol ceremony,Modern Art Oxford, UK
Living memories, Oxford, UK
Blood Memories
Welcome Trust Project, London, UK
2010 CabaretMelancholic,London,UK
Vox Humana, Oxford, UK
Living memories, Oxford, UK
2009 Cabaret Melancholic, London, UK
Hoss, Oxford, UK
Ruskin Degree Show, Oxford, UK
Jacqueline Du Pre Music Rooms, Oxford, UK
Dolphin Gallery, Oxford, UK
The Long Room, Oxford, UK
Other activities
2011 Consultant, invitation to work with Chinese Arts
Association
2010 Consultant, developing website for Russian auction house in
London
2009 Exhibition Manager, Ruskin Degree Show
In 2009 I had three major solo shows.
That year I managed and exhibited in the Ruskin Degree show.
I also took part in two live performances with Professor Brian
Catling –
artist and Head of Oxford University’s Fine Art Department,
Between 2010 and 2011 I was selected to take part in an event at
Modern Art Oxford
where I did a solo performance. I was also invited to perform at a
live event in London.
I began working on a new body of work related to my study of
physicality, presence
and energy. I have initiated four long-term projects that I am
working on at the moment.
These are as follows:
Living Memories Is a documentary project in
collaboration with the Director of the Oxford University Media Department. We
are in the process of interviewing members of the older generation and recording
their memories and stories. This material will be used at a later date as part
of an installation.
Welcome Trust is an art and science research project
that I am developing with an Academic Psychiatrist at Imperial College London
and a biochemist at Oxford. This project examines how memory is stored in
physical materials.
Vox Humana is a collaboration with a composer and
pianist. We have been exploring film images of intimacy and foreignness as
discussed in my BFA thesis. The final artwork will be a media and sound piece
installation based on religious icons. This project is near completion.
Blood Memories is a written work that examines the
possibility of transferring memory from one physical material to another.
Awards
2008 RadcliffeHospitalTrust,commission,Oxford,UK
Project Manager, collaboration with internationally renowned
artists Janet Cardiff/
George Bures - Miller
The National Gallery, workshop tutor assisting Dr Sarah
Simblet
2007 Geoffrey Rhoades Prize for high academic
achievement
Lady Margaret Hall academic achievement
scholarship
University of Oxford, commission, Oxford, UK
Residency
2007 Rome residency, chosen to represent the UK at regional
contemporary art exhibition
A Critique of Donna Han
Michael Archer(Critic and Writer for the
Guardian )
I recall having to get down on my knees in
order to crawl into a low shelter. Although the structure was lovingly
constructed, it was nonetheless provisional, having been assembled from a
number of the signs estate agents use to advertise that a house is for sale. It
was a place of rest and repose fashioned from the evidence of moving and
removal. Once inside I was warm and comfortable, not least because Donna Han
was already in there too, ready to prepare and serve me a cup of tea. As I
drank, I reflected upon whether the appeal of the invitation to socialise
outweighed the requirement to abase myself. And I came to no definite
conclusion – or, rather, I came to the conclusion that I could not come to any
conclusion, because these opposing feelings of subjugation and conjugation were
both essential to the experiencing of the work. Behind the pleasantness and generosity
of that common domestic ritual was a hard insistence on the realities of those
relations of power we negotiate every day. Likewise, beyond the risks that
inevitably come with showing one’s vulnerability lay the benefit of open
engagement with another human being.
We can also see the importance of the
double-edged nature of interpersonal relations in Han’s sculpture, especially
in her use of balance and mutual support between elements. She chooses the word
‘contraposto’ to describe this preference for achieving a delicate state of
equilibrium. With its reference to muscle groups holding the body’s parts in a
kind of relaxed tension it is a term which roots our experience of the work
firmly within the body. Intellectual pleasure aside, it is as much as anything
how these works feel, how they both seduce and threaten at one and the same
time, that matters. If the idea of ritual suggests itself easily, it is above
all the sense of a familiar action executed not mindlessly, but with poise and
reflection that is meant here. In a context such as this, where the habitual is
understood to possess a philosophical dimension, objects become energised
through the role they play in the dramas of existence. They present themselves
in relation to the body, whether this be in the way they are handled and used,
or the manner in which we decide to look at, stand and move around and within
them.
Various of Han’s structures have taken the
form of a shelter. In her latest work the articulation of a sense of enclosure
has been brought down to a more intimate scale. Rather than thinking in terms
of a dwelling – a house or at least a hut – these new pieces speak to the
individual. The mask, wig, vest and the suit of armour clothe and cover the
body, concealing and protecting it while presenting an illusory face to the
world around. A mask of hair, a mask of string, a vest of phone covers – all so
inextricably of and for the body, the head, the ear, the mouth, and the hand.
Made from Korean paper, the suit of armour is redolent of the dressmaker’s
pattern, a template for the real thing. Aggression and sensuality intermingle
in this construction that is both personal carapace and carrier of
authoritative, perhaps even nationalistic power. How do we situate ourselves either
within or adjacent to such a thing, to its image and its material substance, to
its historical and cultural character? What is the nature of that face that we
might present to the world in respect of it? What are we hiding, what are we
afraid of and what do we love?
