do you have a key?
do you have a key? is a sculptural installation that traces fragments of memory through a single, familiar object: the key. More than a tool, the key becomes an emotional conduit—opening and closing moments, spaces, and transitions in the artist’s life.
The work draws from the tactile memory of holding a key in Korea, unlocking a childhood home filled with specific textures, sounds, and light. Years later, that same gesture—now performed in Glasgow—evokes a very different emotional landscape. The key begins to lose its original function and gains new, layered meanings shaped by time, distance, and dislocation.
Through cracked surfaces, worn materials, and overlapping patterns, the piece expresses the erosion and resurfacing of memory. The key, as an object, resists fixed symbolism; instead, it drifts between practicality and sentiment, becoming a metaphor for the fluid, shifting nature of belonging.
do you have a key? does not tell a specific story. Rather, it invites the viewer to recall their own—keys they’ve carried, doors they’ve opened, and the emotional weight of spaces they’ve passed through. It quietly asks: what are the things we hold onto, forget, and try to find again?
