In company of winds, trees and dogs, Joan Jonas unveils 'more-than-human' world

Joan Jonas' "Empty Rooms" (2025), unveiled as part of the American artist's first museum solo exhibition in Korea, "The More-than-Human World," at the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol

Now 89, American artist Joan Jonas has watched more friends — humans and animals — depart than she can bear to count.

“It occurred to me about a year ago that each person leaves an empty room when they leave my life,” she said.

This year, Jonas gathered the quiet weight of those losses — the companions gone, the memories fading — and laid them bare in a single room.

“Empty Rooms,” her latest installation, was unveiled at the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. It features images of bare trees and drifting paper, intertwined under bands of light and shadow.

Cream-colored paper sculptures hang in the air, glowing from within, while a doghouse sits on the floor. One wall is crowded with dozens of drawings of a leafless tree. A video loops nearby, pairing shadow play with jazz piano compositions by the artist’s longtime collaborator, Jason Moran.

The installation, which weaves together the visual languages of sculpture, drawing and video that Jonas has explored since the 1960s, serves as a fitting centerpiece for “The More-than-Human World,” her first museum show in Korea.

Installation view of Joan Jonas' "The More-than-Human World" at the Nam June Paik Art Center / Korea Times photo by Park Han-sol

The show follows her recent recognition as the recipient of the Nam June Paik Prize. Founded in 2009, the biennial award initially focused on mid-career artists known for their experimental spirit. After a comprehensive restructuring, the prize was relaunched in 2024 with a new purpose: to honor contemporary artists whose work pushes the boundaries of media experimentation and advances themes of peace and mutual understanding. Jonas became the first laureate of the reimagined prize.

“Jonas’ practice reveals the possibility of a world beyond human exceptionalism, where humans and nonhumans coexist and the values of interdependence come to the fore,” said Park Nam-hee, director of the Nam June Paik Art Center, explaining the jury’s decision.

The award also marks an unexpected “reunion” between Jonas and Paik, two pioneers whose experiments helped define 20th-century video art and who were once literal neighbors in New York, close enough to see into each other's windows.

A still from Joan Jonas' "Wind" (1968) / Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone

The 41 works on view at “The More-than-Human World” trace the arc of her creative life: from early video and performance pieces made with portable cameras to the practice she developed from the 1980s onward, probing beyond humans to include nonhuman entities.

The 1968 “Wind,” a silent film shot one winter on the beaches of Long Island, let fierce coastal gusts dictate the performers’ movements. In doing so, the artist cast nature not as a mere backdrop but as an active protagonist, a force collaborating in the performance.

A still from Joan Jonas' "Organic Honey’s Visual Telepathy" (1972) / Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone

In 1970, during a trip to Japan, Jonas purchased a portable video camera. The ability to see images as they were being captured was nothing short of revelatory. In “Organic Honey’s Visual Telepathy,” she shifts between herself and her avatar, “Organic Honey,” revealing the slippage between reality and its mediated double through the camera’s gaze. Her persistent presence in her own performances aligned with the rise of the feminist movement in the U.S., a moment where mass media portrayals of the female body were coming under increasing scrutiny.

Joan Jonas' "Beautiful Dog" (2014) / Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone

By the late 1980s, she began directing her attention toward the more-than-human world.

“Beautiful Dog” centers on her own dog, Ozu. She attached a tiny camera to his neck so the footage would reflect his movements and perspectives as he wandered through the Canadian landscape. The resulting video is flipped upside down, at times shaking with the rhythm of his breath. By having Ozu as both performer and co-creator, Jonas dissolves the boundary between species.

“The More-than-Human World” runs through March 29, 2026.