Steven Junil Park, Shopper slippers, 2024

Steven Junil Park
Shopper slippers, 2024
recycled shoppers, leather, cotton, soling board, and recycled rubber floor tiles
size 36

These slippers were made in response to Ruby Chang-Jet White’s work in Yawning at the Fray, a joint exhibition between White and Park at The Physics Room in 2024. Park recycled the classic “Hong Kong shopper” to create these pairs of wearable and durable slippers, thinking about inheritance, migration and the ways that textiles connect us to ourselves and each other.

Park also made costumes for dancer and artist Jahra Wasasala for their 2022 TPR exhibition and performance KALOUGATA: under the earth.

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Steven Junil Park is a Korean-born multidisciplinary artist based in Ōtautahi. His practice explores the potential of the handmade to express identity and understand the human experience, producing clothing, textiles and other functional and craft-based objects. His exploration of the physical properties of craft materials is a path to explore the intangible, emotional, and spiritual qualities of our lives.