Sacred Tree (신목, 神木)

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Sacred Tree is a participatory installation inspired by Korean sacred tree traditions known as 신목 and communal ritual spaces called 서낭당. In these folk practices, cloth, offerings, and gestures mediate relationships between humans and unseen forces.
Reinterpreting this ritual structure through interactive media, the installation invites participants to activate a network of hybrid digital organisms. Five colored portals extend from the central tree, referencing 오방색, the cosmological color system associated with the five elements and cardinal directions in East Asian philosophy.
Visitors interact with the installation by tapping low portals positioned near the ground. This embodied gesture mimics the act of picking up fallen flowers, an empathetic action that reflects the artist’s own experience of living abroad and confronting existential displacement.
Through a mobile AR interface, participants encounter Gelora—speculative hybrid creatures generated from scans of fallen flowers collected by the artist. The name combines gel, referencing silica gel used for preservation, and flora, symbolizing plant life.
Emerging from fragments of the environment, Gelora represent displaced forms seeking regeneration within new ecological and cultural networks.