Derived from the Japanese and Korean terms for “woman,” 연하 (Yeonha) is a collective portrait of East Asian adolescence and womanhood, shaped through intimacy and the domestic space. Hidden within a futon – emblematic of the bedroom – the work takes on projected associations of rest, solitude, sexuality, suffocation and vulnerability. 

Woven from the same black hair, the decorative norigae pendant hangs like a protective talisman. Through the acts of combing, braiding and arranging the hair, the norigae functions as a continuation of the self-portrait, whilst referencing the reduction of womanhood to ornamentation; an existence aestheticised and belittled as consumable.

To exist as Asian women within the nightlife scene– raves, clubs, parties – the body becomes a visual commodity, fetished and eroticised beyond our own autonomy. The internalisation of patriarchal structures from Japan and South Korea, carried into a Western lens, produces a state of constant self-surveillance. Manifesting into the desire to disappear; retreating to solitude and concealing away after a night out. 연하 embodies this withdrawal, portraying the psychological and emotional exertion of constant sexualisation and the longing to reclaim the body through intentional absence.