From Boston to Gangneung, Fragments of a Botanical Garden: Park Sohyeong's Ecological Sculpture | SAF Online Gallery
From Boston to Gangneung, Fragments of a Botanical Garden: Park Sohyeong's Ecological Sculpture
Artist Stories · 2026-04-20 · 씨앗페 매거진
BFA at SVA, MFA in sculpture at Boston University. Park Sohyeong unfolds an ecological practice that spans Seoul, Boston, and New York — weaving AI, plant life, and mushroom spores.
Park Sohyeong's practice moves between three cities.
Seoul, Boston, New York. And from sculpture, installation, and video art to AI media and ecological art drawing in plants and mushroom spores. Multiple media and multiple geographies sit alongside one another within a single artist.
From SVA to Boston University
Park Sohyeong received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York (2021). She then completed her MFA in Sculpture at Boston University (BU MFA Sculpture, 2023).
"Park Sohyeong works across sculpture, installation, and video art, and crosses into media work combining AI and ecological art using plants and mushroom spores, building her own unique artistic world."
An attitude of crossing between media grew within the curricula of SVA and BU. The breadth of studying sculpture in the US while reaching into ecological art and AI media. That breadth is the artist's identity.
Three Groups, Three Orientations
Park Sohyeong belongs to three artist groups.
New England Sculpture Association (NESA) — a sculptors' alliance in the New England region
I3C (Inspiring Climate Change) — a Boston-based climate crisis artist group
Green Recipe Lab — a Korean women artists' group
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Sculpture, climate crisis, a Korean women artists' network. Three directions of affiliation coexist within one person. Rather than operating solo, she works among people who consistently gather under shared themes.
What's Next: A Notable Emerging Artist
In 2022, Park Sohyeong was selected for the exhibition What's Next: Perspective Micro and Macro at Boston's Emerson College Media Art Gallery. She was named among the notable emerging artists working in Boston.
That same year, she participated in six exhibitions including Burning Man Decompression at Knockdown Center (New York), Banging the Door at Piano Craft Gallery, and Behind VS Shadow in Boston. In 2023, she joined Water, Ancient Greek Philosophy and in Western Alchemy at LaguanaART.com Gallery (Mission Viejo, California) and Boston MFA Mixer at Lesley University College of Art and Design.
Digital Soup and Fountain Street
In 2023 and 2024, Park Sohyeong participated in the Digital Soup residency. Cyber Art Gallery (2023) and the Sidewalk Gallery program at Fountain Street Gallery (2024). The name "Digital Soup" suggests a laboratory combining AI and plant ecology. In 2025, she continued with Boston-based exhibitions including Future Yarning at Piano Craft Gallery, Boundary and Beyond at Arts Collaborative Medford, and Information Overload at 808 Commonwealth Gallery.
Her activity in Korea is also increasing. In 2025, she participated in Urban Resistance at Arise Artspace in Busan, and held her invited solo exhibition Recording the Day When Fragments of the Past and Pieces of the Future Pass Each Other at Gallery Cheongpung in Gangneung.
The list of materials is itself a description of Park Sohyeong's way of working. Watercolor and ink drawing are traditional painting materials; cardboard is an industrial material; hanji is a uniquely Korean material. The three mix on a single surface. A place where the sculptural language trained in the US overlaps with Korean materials.
When the two titles Botanical Garden and Revealed Di sit as a pair, one senses what the artist is trying to record between "fragments of the past and pieces of the future." The site of life and the opening of death. Two extremes ecological art handles.
Climate Crisis and Mutual Aid
84.9% of Korean artists are excluded from institutional finance. Sales of works by SAF-exhibiting artists build a mutual-aid fund that returns as low-interest loans to fellow artists facing financial discrimination.
Boston's I3C, to which Park Sohyeong belongs, is a climate crisis artist group. A clue as to why her practice consistently carries the themes of "ecology" and "the commons." If the climate crisis is a common problem, the financial discrimination of Korean artists is also a common structure. One that no individual can solve alone, and that only shrinks through collective action. SAF's mutual aid is one such collective action.
A Sensibility of Three Cities
Park Sohyeong's work carries the sensibility of three cities. Seoul's hanji, Boston's experimentation, New York's energy.
SAF hands Park Sohyeong to the audience on the Seoul side of those three. The time of sculpture accumulated in the US comes to the walls of Korea. Her two works flow from one city's place to another city's artist. That flow fits the name "botanical garden."
