I am deeply curious about human nature. Perhaps no different from you.
As social beings, we interact, connect, and reflect ourselves through others.
These exchanges help us build relationships—and also bring us closer to understanding ourselves.

This exhibition is the culmination of my reflections on what it means to be human.
Drawing on my observations, experiences, and imagination, I attempt to give visual form to the complexity of our inner lives—emotions, desires, contradictions.
For if human nature has driven the arc of history until now, it will surely shape the path ahead.

The series is composed of three visual chapters:

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I. Flag – The Desire to Belong

This series portrays the political instinct to follow a leader, using the symbol of a flag.
Each flag represents divergent ideologies, yet the people beneath all seek the same thing: identity and belonging.

The crowd, unified under the banner, loses individuality and agency. Their actions become disciplined, automatic—guided less by thought than by feeling.
Especially in times of fear, uncertainty, or crisis, humans become more susceptible to emotional manipulation, and more willing to submit to authority.

To express this, I photographed a faceless leader in black, cloaked and blindfolded, carrying a black flag across an empty plain.
Behind them, followers dressed in white march without direction—evoking the surrender of critical thinking to the comforts of group identity.

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II. Worship – The Desire to Believe

Here, I recreated a symbolic “temple” composed of the world’s most powerful corporate logos.
These companies—wielding vast technological and economic power—command loyalty much like the gods of ancient shrines.

Though we live in an era of rapid innovation, I believe our instincts remain much the same.
As children, we seek reassurance through family and structure.
But as adults, uncertainty increases, and we project our anxieties onto symbols of power—finding comfort in the systems that promise control, security, and validation.

We become attached not only to power itself, but to those who possess it.
Our desire to be acknowledged, respected, and included makes us worshippers—even when we claim to be free.

But blind worship diminishes autonomy.
It weakens our individuality, blurs our moral responsibility, and distances us from one another.
I believe we must learn to free ourselves from these illusions—and live with greater awareness, dignity, and self-direction.

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III. Freedom – The Illusion of Escape

In the final work, a bird sits inside a cage.
Behind it, a landscape of serene, beautiful nature.
Is the cage a prison? Or protection?

This ambiguity reflects the human condition:
We flee pain, anxiety, and helplessness—often by creating psychological cages of comfort.
In pursuing external markers of success—money, status, power—we gradually surrender the internal freedoms of thought, action, and choice.

Psychologist Erich Fromm warned against this kind of “false freedom.”
To be truly free, he said, one must connect with their inner self, discover personal values, and live with independent thought and moral responsibility.
True freedom requires courage.

The compassion we feel when seeing a caged bird may, in truth, be directed inward—toward the trapped selves we recognize in its wings.

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Closing Words

I’m grateful to share the work I’ve developed over the past year.
As an artist, I do not know if these images will satisfy—but I hope they offer questions, reflections, and moments of resonance.
Even if imperfect, I hope they illuminate something within the viewer’s own experience of life and art.

My heartfelt thanks to every visitor, collaborator, and colleague who joined me in making this exhibition possible.

Spring 2023,
Written in Lampang,
Hakbong Kwon