Mama: Youngjoo Cho

Gwen Park presents Mama, a solo exhibition by Youngjoo Cho. Drawing on her experience of childbirth and raising a child, Cho examines motherhood through the body and the daily work of care. Her works bring its intimacy and vulnerability into view, alongside the demands placed on women. The exhibition considers motherhood as both a personal experience and a role shaped by wider expectations.

The exhibition brings together two video installations and a range of related installations, objects and works on paper. A curtain installation and a score, among other works, take as their starting point a diary Cho kept while caring for her newborn. It records the rhythms of feeding, nappy changes and sleep, task by task. This precise account shows how care organises a mother’s day and demands sustained attention, often at the cost of her own time and needs.

This close view of maternal care opens onto broader representations of the female body in Cho’s experimental film Flesh Behind the Curtain (2025). Through intimate, subversive vignettes, the film examines meanings projected onto the female body, from sexuality to politics, connecting motherhood with the social ideas that shape how women’s bodies and identities are seen.