Jeewi Lee

Each soap object contains the unique imprint of a scorched tree fragment. The soap bars evoke the purifying effect of ash which, when mixed with oil to form black soap, was already used for washing in ancient times. The title is a reference to a passage in the funeral liturgy: “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust”. It can be read as a ritual of farewell to the lost trees, but it also celebrates nature’s constant self-renewal. Ash, the last material trace of the burnt trees, fertilises the soil, nurturing the potential and the energy to generate new life.

The sculptures and silkscreen prints in the second room are from a series which has been expanding since 2024 in collaboration with the geometry researcher Phillip C. Reiner. Here Jeewi Lee explores grains of sand from different coastal regions, using nano-computed tomography to scan them and then, after a complex process of digitisation, enlarging them up to three thousand times with 3D printers and translating them into art. These sculptures replicate the selected grains of sand down to the tiniest detail and bear an affinity to Korean scholars’ stones (suseok), pieces of rock shaped like miniature landscapes, mountains or animals. In another series Jeewi Lee and Phillip C. Reiner use cross-sections derived from the scans to visualise the density and inner texture of each grain as typical attributes associated with a specific place.

The works on display build a bridge to the exhibition “Residual Memories”, which opens at the Berlinische Galerie in 10 September 2026 as part of Berlin Art Week and marks the GASAG Art Prize 2026. There Jeewi Lee combines large-format sand sculptures with other works of sand to create an immersive landscape which is both dystopian and contemplative, evoking the design of Asian gardens.