Do Ho Suh draws upon personal experiences of dislocation from a homeland and native culture, responding to homesickness and the nature of nationalism. Suh frequently addresses themes of identity in his work, as they relate to notions of personal space.
Through his residency at FWM, Suh collaborated with the studio staff to create Paratrooper II, a translucent sculpture that was, in its original installation, suspended from a giant parachute eighteen feet in the air in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ Morris Gallery. To realize this work, FWM helped Suh develop a process to knit monofilament. As a result of their technical collaboration and experimentation, FWM and Suh were able to stretch and mold the material to the shape of a life-size figure Suh had previously sculpted, a paratrooper. Supported by six concentric circles of 225 delicate and individually sewn poly organza blouses, the multifaceted parachute hovered over the solitary paratrooper figure, the two connected by the same colorful threads of monofilament. Suh carefully and intentionally manipulated the color through a combination of deliberately selected threads of monofilament. The transition from red (hot) to blue (cool) hues represents a transfer of karmic energy passed from generation to generation, from ancestor to ancestor.
This project marked a continuation of Suh’s effort to address the relationship of the individual and the collective, be it child to ancestor or citizen to society. The Paratrooper series explores the notion of the individual as a cumulative product of his or her ancestry and culture. Suh notes that clothing is “the most intimate habitable personal space,” and with Paratrooper II Suh deliberately juxtaposes the multitude of vacant blouses that form the all encompassing parachute with the solitary figure of the paratrooper.
