Kudos acknowledges and pays respect to the Gadigal and Bidjigal people of the Eora nation. They are the traditional custodians of the land Kudos operates on. We create, design, share, and exchange our work and knowledge on this important meeting place. We pay our respects to elders past and present and extend that respect to any First Nations people who engage with Kudos. This is and always will be Aboriginal land.
| Eric Kang is an interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores memory, nostalgia, cultural dissonance, and experiences of relocation through drawing, painting, and installation. Working with materials including hanji, meok, paper, and metal, Kang uses processes of layering, twisting, weaving, and repetition to transform fragile materials into structures of tension and resilience. His work considers the shifting relationship between reality and recollection, while placing slow, embodied methods of making in dialogue with industrial systems of order, measurement, and circulation. Through these material contrasts, Kang examines how memory, place, and cultural experience are constructed, distorted, and reimagined over time. @erickang.xyz |
| Cargo Manifest |
Eric Kang, Cargo Manifest, 2026, Meok ink on mulberry paper, zinc-plated steel hardware, LED lights, timber pallet, 1165mm x 1165mm x 705mm, hanging height variable. |
| Cargo Manifest explores translation, displacement, and the fragmented emotions that accompany movement, drawing from my experience of moving from Korea to Australia and existing between places and languages. The work began with discarded timber pallets collected from a campus construction site. Designed to transport materials, the pallets became symbols of cargo, freight, and transition. Their circulation parallels the movement of people, carrying traces of where they have been while acquiring new meanings in unfamiliar contexts. Serial numbers, stamps, and labels found on the pallets are incorporated throughout the work. Intended to identify and organise movement, these markings suggest order and efficiency, yet often remain illegible to those outside the systems that produce them. This coded language reflects the confusion and isolation of being surrounded by information that appears meaningful but cannot be understood. Traditional Korean materials and processes are brought into contact with industrial construction materials. Meok on hanji is suspended alongside threaded steel rods, nuts, and brackets, while jiseung, a traditional Korean technique of twisting paper into cord, transforms flat paper into continuous threads. This transformation becomes a form of translation, where the material remains the same while its form and function shift. The repetitive gesture of twisting paper mirrors the fastening of nuts onto threaded rods, connecting inherited traditions with industrial labour. The irregularity of the hand-twisted threads contrasts with the rigidity of the metal structure and its systematic codes. Rather than resolving into a shared language, Cargo Manifest remains within the uncertainty of translation and displacement, considering what is carried, changed, retained, or made illegible through movement. Suspended from the ceiling, the work remains in an ongoing state of transit. |