Hamartia: Jungho Oak

“Hamartia” comes from Greek and means to miss the mark or to violate a norm. It is a term most often used to define a sin. 

I want to speak about how personal or social guilt is passed on and how it is resolved. The forms of atonement, excessive guilt, and the pressed-down individual shaped by a society burdened with collective victimhood form the core of this exhibition.

The dictionary defines sin as an act that goes against rules recognised by law, morality, or religion by groups such as the state, society, or a religious order, along with its consequences. Yet the standards for judging sin inevitably differ across religions, communities, traditions, and nations. 

Sin leaves behind guilt, and this guilt demands a price through the process of atonement. Crimes addressed by social law are dealt with through proportional physical restraint and financial compensation. But when sin is shifted into the personal realm, its vague criteria lead to forms of atonement that lack structure and become impulsive, emotional, and punitive. 

Religion has focused on sinful acts, while philosophy has examined the conditions of sin. Still, even without sin, we have often performed grand rituals of atonement. When collective guilt is transferred entirely onto the individual, its weight becomes unbearable.

Through this exhibition, I seek to depict these conditions once again.