Sera YONG

As a graphic designer, Sera Yong has worked for Hort, a graphic design studio in Berlin since 2012, and as a member of the Collective. Since 2013, she has collaborated with Pavla Zabranska, a Czech designer she met at Hort, under the name of Praoul. Yong has worked for Nike, Die Ziet, Hansung Motor, Åland, Seoul Museum of Art, Asia Culture Center. Also, she wrote the book Berlin Design Social Club, delivering her story of life as a designer in Berlin. She participated in the Typojanchi 2018-2019: 6th International Typography Biennale as an artist in 2018 and as a curator in 2019.

Words Said in Passing appears from the upper part and passes and flows down. An ever-changing environment never returns and passes down, just like those words we have already spat out. We live our daily lives; I am sometimes bored by my surroundings, but yesterday is never the same as today. Despite such boring days, small but new events continue to occur. That even a leaf falling from the tree I passed along the walkway caught my attention is one of the small events that happened to me today. This summer passes, counting day after day before the season moves to fall. Next year or even in ten years, the summer of this year will never return. This season passes by, and nature now repeats such changes.
The graphics of the work expresses the nature that passes as the morning comes after the night has made its way. The primary colors and many other colors supporting them represent the changing of every season: the seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter; the hours of the morning, day, night, and dawn; and the scenes of the flowers, trees, rivers, and mountains. Different types depict nature’s dynamic energy pass while changing the move ments such as steadily passing, slowly passing, gathering and passing, or pass ing one by one. A shape turns a new form by the combination of various images with different colors and types. Then, an unforeseen shape and the combination of colors are created, like an unexpected environmental change.
The poems by Sang-wook Ha are centered on practical thoughts amid every day that I would have in mind in my daily life, but we are indeed captivated by his po ems since we have never come up with an idea to connect them, but they catch us off-guard in the genre of poetry.
We who lead a weary life these days may feel empathy for the five poems in the artwork. The work invites viewers to halt and develop thoughts by connecting their own ideas to the passing phrases. I call the phrases in the po ems “passing words” because I intend not to hold them in my mind but to watch and let them pass.
In living in the contemporary world, we have so many things to care about and remember that our mind and body rarely have the time to feel relaxed. To us, these passing words are expected to become something to slide, pass through their minds and leave an impression like an instant of the sur roundings that once touches and passes us.
The video has been created in collaboration with Zemmix so that poetry and graphics could flow in harmony. The flexible types of the graphic, as if to pass by, move together with the phrases of the poems, which have been invigorated by Zemmix. Many curves that embrace the space are expected to bind many elements in the video.
Pavla Zabranska, whom I work together with the name Praoul, was responsible for the sound. Praoul is a compound word of Prague and Seoul, meaning Pavla Zabranska from Prague and Sera Yong from Seoul. The two who happened to sit next to each other at Hort, a design studio in Berlin, formed a project team in 2013 and have worked together or independently until now. Praoul is interested in expressing the objects in the real world in an unrealistic way and combines fitting sounds to embody the unrealistic ambiance. From the sound of this work, viewers can feel a new atmosphere integrating the two identities that have been affected by the two cities, instead of Seoul or Prague individually.