Blank Space is pleased to present a special online exhibition by designer Hayoun Won featuring a variety of works that range from spatial installation to hand-drawn design diagrams that respond directly to the COVID-19 pandemic. Won has created the installation Moments of Silence which is comprised of a media projection and four digital artworks which seeks to create a monument and memorial for those lost to the current tragedy. Also included in the exhibition are series' from her past projects which think about the way in which design can impact and affect change on a social level and even react to the present circumstances; a future design without boundaries.

A portion of all sales will be donated directly to Covid-19 relief funds.

I’m a designer, and I’m interested in future designs for commemorate and imagination. I’m always looking for how to help with social issues using design in the world. With my work, I hope that people can have time for a few minutes of silence, and to commemorate the incalculable victims across the world.

(Hayoun Won)

The digital projection work begins with black and white maps that symbolizes the cities of China, the United States, Russia, England, Italy, Spain, Germany, Turkey, France, South Korea, and Japan. The maps, devoid of color and almost biological at first glance, intend to bleakly symbolize the image of Corona's damage from the sky. This harsh landscape transitions into Won’s abstract spaces of squares and flowers which is a space to remember and think of the victims of a family member or neighbours around them in every city and town affected across the globe.

Accompanying the digital works presented in the exhibition are the Mr and Mrs Futures Series and Future Design Series. Both of these works intend to think ahead about how design can change the future and respond directly to moments of crisis. The Mr and Mrs Future Series is comprised of hand-drawn designs for futures that showcase the ways in which the designer is thinking about space in its most abstract sense. These imagined worlds are presented in their unmediated form and frame different aspects of an inhabited space.

Won’s Future Design Series recontextualizes her work in a corporate design setting into art objects to promote a larger understanding of both how design can affect the world and her personal relationship to thinking about the future. One element of these pieces are snapshots of her Seeking Truth series wherein Won utilized digital projection upon the Harvard Widener Library to investigate emerging cultural issues that play critical roles in our society but that are given the least attention in design. Another element of this series are images from her Future Design project which provides an opportunity to see a wide range of different aspects in design from spaces to objects using social issues, sensor technology, and her works in exhibition design that combine digital media and traditional physical designs. Images from past projects are presented through a digital sphere, a form of gazing ball, which reflects their status as snippets of memory in the past. Outside of real space, these pieces showcase the design process incorporating plans, renderings, and images to convey the artistic process of this form of thinking.

Hayoun Won was born in Seoul in South Korea and received a Doctorate, MFA, BFA in Industrial and Space Design at Seoul National University. She also received a Masters Degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Won was nominated as a Korea Next Generation Design Leader received the Presidential Honor award from the President of Korea, and was awarded the distinction of the Harvard Art Show Prize in Mixed Media. She is a current lecturer at Seoul National University and a director at the Futuring Co. She has had a solo exhibition in Tokyo and has participated in group exhibitions and design biennales in Boston, San Jose, Bridgeport, Milan, London, Tokyo, and Osaka.