Small beings, vast universe: Jeju’s Podo Museum contemplates our shared fragility

Sho Shibuya's "Sunrise from a Small Window" and "Event" series (2020-present) at the Podo Museum on Jeju Island / Courtesy of Podo Museum

SEOGWIPO, Jeju Island — Inside the Podo Museum, there is a copy of the March 23, 2025, edition of The New York Times that can't be read. Where rigid columns of text and photographs would normally recount the day’s events, the entire page has been drowned in a field of velvety black.

Cutting through this darkness is a single serpentine curve of glowing red-orange light. At first glance, it could be many things — a river of lava or a solar flare seen from outer space. Only when you flip the page does its origin come into focus: a photograph of wildfires tearing through southeastern Korea last spring.

Such “visual translations” have become the daily ritual of artist Sho Shibuya. Each morning, from the rooftop of his Brooklyn apartment, he reads The Times and paints over its front page with an image born from the story that grips him most that day.

On the cover of another newspaper, he conjures a vast, unbroken sky as it appeared above him that morning. Placed side by side, the two pages speak in quiet contrast: the violence of human affairs, from wars to mass shootings, set against the eternal calm of the cosmos. The works are a reminder that each sunrise arrives untouched by our turmoil, and that we, small and fragile, drift through a universe both indifferent and sublime.

Sarah Sze's "Sleepers" (2022) / Courtesy of Podo Museum

Chloe Kim, executive director of the Podo Museum / Courtesy of Podo Museum

This humble recognition lies at the heart of the Podo Museum’s new exhibition, “We, Such Fragile Beings.”

“I’ve often wondered why we become so consumed by the skirmishes of daily life, why we hurl ourselves into endless conflict when, in truth, these problems are like molecules, [infinitesimally small against the vast scale of the cosmos],” reflected Chloe Kim, the museum’s executive director, at a recent press preview.

But the show doesn’t lean toward existential dread. Instead, it suggests that only by lingering in our shared finiteness and imperfection can we begin to explore the possibilities for connection.

“An experience that lifts us beyond our immediate concerns allows us to gain distance from what troubles us, opening the space to see and feel differently,” Kim mused.

Gathered under her curatorial vision are 13 artists from around the world, each exploring the delicate threads that quietly bind us together.

Installation view of the Podo Museum's new group exhibition, "We, Such Fragile Beings" / Courtesy of Podo Museum

Annabel Daou's "WHEN IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS" (2019-20) / Courtesy of Podo Museum

Beginning with the opening line of the U.S. Declaration of Independence — “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to …” — Annabel Daou’s monumental scroll stretches from wall to floor in an unbroken sweep.

In place of the original declaration’s entreaty to political action, however, her handwritten lines, gathered from voices spanning continents and classes, speak of small, ordinary acts: “to dream in the night,” “to run for the hills,” “to butter your toast.” It’s a kind of collective declaration, a chorus of the everyday.

“What was really interesting to me was the sense of excitement — the possibility of rewriting or taking on the form of this U.S. document that was written by wealthy white men and putting it in the voices of people from across the world,” Daou said.

Maarten Baas' "Real Time Conveyor Belt Clock" (2025), left, and "Real Time XL The Artist" (2018) / Courtesy of Podo Museum

Another thread that binds us in our shared fragility is time itself, an unceasing current we can never swim against.

In the hands of artists like Maarten Baas and Lee Wan, the abstract flow of time becomes something we can see and feel.

Baas’ “Real Time Conveyor Belt Clock,” created specifically for the Jeju exhibition, makes this transformation visible.

In its endless video loop, workers in blue overalls assemble and dismantle paper clock hands on conveyor belts. With each passing minute, a new pair of hands takes shape, perfectly aligned with the time the viewer stands before it. Here, time is expressed as a tangible cycle of making and unmaking.

Lee Wan's "Proper Time" (2025) / Courtesy of Podo Museum

Meanwhile, Lee fills a blindingly white hallway with 560 clocks, each ticking to its own rhythm. Beneath every face is a name, birth year, occupation and nationality.

First presented at the Korean Pavilion during the 2017 Venice Biennale, “Proper Time” turns time into a deeply personal experience. A minute is never the same for everyone. For American doctors, Indian farmers, German students and Korean office workers, each clock beats to the pulse of a different existence.

“There’s a formula,” Lee explained. “By entering data from the people I interviewed — their income, their country’s GDP (gross domestic product), the average cost of a single meal, etc. — I calculated the speed of time for each person. In the end, the pace is shaped not only by individual income, but also by the power of the nations they inhabit.”

Robert Montgomery's "Love is The Revolutionary Energy" (2025) / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol

The exhibition ends in the museum’s front yard with the glowing punch of Robert Montgomery’s outdoor work, its lightbulbs spelling out: “Love is the revolutionary energy that annihilates the shadows and collapses this distance between us.”

“We, Such Fragile Beings” runs through Aug. 8, 2026 at the Podo Museum.