Shovel the Snow in the North

Shovel the Snow in the North is a single-channel artwork combining bodily performance and moving-image documentation. Originating from the artist’s observation of shadows and daily chores on northern snowfields, the work translates a mundane gesture of shoveling snow into an ongoing practice on the relationship between body, shadow, and environment.

Against the expansive white snow, the artist repeatedly strikes with his shovel toward his own shadow projected onto the ground. A physical gesture normally directed toward the external environment is turned toward an unreachable object: an attempt to use concrete physical labor to strip away the self-limitation clinging to the snow. However, while a shadow can be lifted along with the snow, it can never be truly erased. Body, tool, and shadow thus enter an endless loop that can never be concluded.

The work does not attempt to assign a definitive symbolism to this performance, opting instead to let this simple, futile action continuously unfold. Between the tangible reality of the snow and the intangible nature of the shadow, a subtle displacement forms among labor, the physical body, and its own trace.