On the second floor of M1, Leeum Museum of Art presents a new VR project by Kwon Hayoun, one of the leading artists in the cutting-edge media of virtual realityAs an artist who actively explores the artistic possibilities of various contemporary technologiesKwon has produced a number of exceptional video works based on virtual reality technology, allowing the audience to enter mysterious realms of ambivalent time and space. Blurring the boundaries between the real and virtual, her works provide unforgettable artistic inspirations unlike anything we have ever experienced before.

In her new VR work Strange Walkers, Kwon Hayoun pays homage to Kim Hong-do's masterpiece Daoist Immortals, one of the most beloved and iconic paintings in the Leeum collection. The deities and other figures in Daoist Immortals are brought to life, slowly moving through an ethereal spaceTheir inexorable movements towards an ambiguous place where the flow of time has stopped prompt us to contemplate the nature of human life, which persistently advances throughout our existence. Stepping into Kwon's virtual worldvisitors can personally join in the eternal movements of the different beings they encounter.

The work consists of three distinct spaces and times. The first space and time is filled with a procession of stars that continually move through an unknown galaxy, before transforming into the second space and time, in which refugees flee the poverty and war of Europe in the 1940sFinally, in the third space and time, these refugees become the deities of Daoist Immortals, before ultimately changing back into the procession of stars, returning to the first sceneThrough this unique experience of fluctuating time and space, visitors are inspired to meditate upon the fundamental essence of human life, as well as our fated destinationAs Leeum's first exhibition of a work based on VRStrange Walkers invites visitors to inhabit the fascinating world of Kwon Hayoun, in which a masterpiece of traditional painting is newly realized in an utterly contemporary way.