FEATURE
Soo Joo
MATERIALS
Wood, Ceramics
Location
Seoul, Korea
Type
Interview
Contact
Nature as design is a tale as old as time, and for good reason. Many designers turn to the obvious – flowers as tables, raw stones set into furniture – hoping to capture nature’s beauty through direct representation. What sets Soo Joo apart is her pursuit of something more elusive: developing forms that embody nature’s essential movements and rhythms. Her work unfolds like a carefully choreographed dance, translating the energetic signatures of the natural world into objects that both comfort and intrigue our biophilic sensibilities.
In her Seoul studio, this approach emerges from a tapestry of influences that have shaped her unconsciously as much as intentionally. Her formal training spans classical painting at Sunhwa Arts School to furniture design at RISD, but equally formative were the hours spent watching her grandmother’s brush dance across paper in traditional Shanshui ink painting, where nature flows through the artist rather than being captured by them. This inheritance of Korean aesthetics, woven together with her environmental science studies at Brown University, has yielded a practice that exists in the fertile space between cultural memory and contemporary innovation.
From her Motion Bench series, which began as gestural sketches in 2015, to her technically ambitious Large Stack Vessels that challenge the very possibilities of Korean ceramics, Soo Joo’s work consistently pushes the boundaries of material and form. Working across wood, bronze, and Korean clay, she develops pieces through a patient process of refinement—sometimes letting ideas evolve over years before they materialize. The results are objects that embody balance and movement in their very form – curves that seem to grow naturally from one plane to the next, vessels that challenge our understanding of equilibrium and weight. In this conversation, we explore Soo Joo’s journey from painting to furniture design, and how she transmutes the vitality of natural movement into enduring form.
Your fine arts training began at Sunhwa Arts School with classical painting. What drew you to three-dimensional work and ultimately furniture design at RISD?
I have a background in fine art, and my grandmother is an East-Asian ink painter. I had an affinity for 3D making growing up, sitting for hours every day sculpting clay into animal figures.
During my RISD foundation year, I got to know the furniture department through my TA Kento Saisho, and Pnehaus who gave me tips on making inflatables. If I studied in this department, I thought I could learn how to build structurally sound things, which were skills I could use to apply to my sculpture practice after graduating. I also liked the size of the department (around seventy people) and that within the department, students had the freedom to focus on a range – from sculptural to more industrially-designed works. Motion Bench and Momentum Mirror I were pieces in my biophilic design collection that I made at RISD. The department’s focus on creating physical prototypes to a high level of finish, over the period of one month, has influenced my current direction of work.
3D work is challenging and stimulating, which I enjoy. I also enjoy making craft objects that interface with daily life – a mirror that reflects you and your day to day. I enjoy rasping and sculpting my pieces by hand, giving the subtle curves a nuanced complexity.
You’ve spoken about the philosophy of living in harmony with nature in design. How does this concept shape your approach to biophilia and creating ‘natural analogs’?
When I was attending Sunhwa Arts middle-school in Seoul, I learned that Korean traditional architecture (even though it is man-made) is designed to look harmonious within the natural setting. Even the windows were meant to frame the trees and outdoor scenery, like artwork for the home. This is also what I strive for today: creating work that is man-made, but speaking the same language as the natural living world.
My practice focuses on developing natural analogs, which are one of the three types of biophilic design, that use materials and forms reminiscent of nature. Natural Analogs are studied to provide health benefits within the built environment, such as lowered blood pressure (Sato, 2007) and improved creative performance (Lichtenfeld, 2012). Homo sapiens as a species have only started living in urbanized settings for the last 1~2% of our time on this planet. This recent urbanization can be jarring, and so I am interested in making work that is more conscious of our biophilic needs that come from evolving near bodies of water, and within abundant natural scenery.
Korean traditional cultural values have valued an equal relationship with nature and humans. Because Korean art and design is heavily influenced by this value as well, it has a lot of overlap with biophilic design. During my studies in environmental science at Brown University and Biodesign at RISD, I developed research on this connectedness between Korean and Biophilic design. Designing forms that are natural analogs is an understudied area, so I draw from my background to create “biophilic design techniques from a Korean perspective.”
Exhibiting your work internationally, at events like ICFF and Salone, has exposed you to a global audience. What has surprised you most about how different cultures respond to your work?
After starting my work in RISD, I first exhibited my collection in 2023 in Seoul, and luckily started exhibiting with an avant-garde furniture gallery here, HPIX Dosan. In 2024, I wanted to bring my work to the US and global market through ICFF and Salone Satellite in Milan. It’s exciting to start exhibiting here now and to have a positive response, because I want to make work that transcends cultural barriers and gets at the root of what makes us human.
Someone at the fairs said the stack vessel sculptures reminded them of Korean calligraphy, as if the aesthetics of ink painting was put into a ceramic sculpture. My work isn’t a direct or literal translation of nature or traditional Korean furniture and architecture, so my favorite feedback from the exhibitions is when people can still see that the work feels Korean.
Could you walk us through the challenges and breakthroughs of creating the Large Stack Vessels, particularly the technical feat of firing such delicate forms?
The Stack Vessel series developed in 2020 over two years, and expresses a sense of ideal ratio and formal harmony. All eleven vessels are a unique shape, and individually trimmed on the wheel in proportion to each other. I especially love their silhouette.
Completely round vessels are extremely challenging to create in ceramics, because of gravitational sagging in the kiln’s high temperatures. The stoneware pieces have no flat base or foot, so it took a couple years of experimenting with exact clay thickness and kilning methods to make these designs even possible without sagging. They also have to be kilned together as a set to ensure the glaze and clay body color comes out of the kiln uniformly. I still make two or three sets at a time to get one that comes out just perfect, so they are a very precious sculpture and a labor of love.
I enjoy that they are a challenge to create, and that they represent a technological feat in ceramics. I use local Korean clay for a neutral and timeless material finish. The glaze turns from a straight line, into a curve at different angles, highlighting the different silhouette of each vessel.
During your time at Anderson Ranch Residency, you began exploring bronze casting. How has working across different materials – wood, ceramics, bronze – influenced your design language?
Each material has a unique history of rich crafting techniques, and I find this fascinating and a source of inspiration for new works. For example, the stack vessel series was inspired by learning wheel-throwing from the other resident artists at Anderson Ranch Art Center. After the residency, during COVID, I dove deeper into wheel-throwing, and developed the sculpture series while I was enamored by the wheel’s use of centripetal force to create voluminous forms. Learning more about new processes like ceramic throwing and bronze-casting has allowed me to always have awe and respect for craft practices, and the beauty of the way humans compile information and build upon new ideas and innovations to create something complex over time.
Looking at pieces like your Momentum Mirror, which evolved from 2015 sketches, there’s clearly a patient approach to design development. How does time factor into your creative practice?
Yes, I like to be patient with design – I strive to make works that are timeless, in the way that classic Danish furniture designs are. Danish design actually has many parallels to Korean design; Denmark is a small peninsular country, like Korea, so the designs are conscious of material usage, making them more minimal. Something paired down allows it to be timeless.
Time allows me to assess my designs and make sure they still speak to me years later. Each new piece I design and bring to fruition, I hope can become a classic that can be passed down and loved for generations. This is also why I wanted to learn how to build my pieces well, and why I gravitate towards using natural finishes and materials. Something about the long history together with man and wood, ceramics, bronze, makes the works soothing.
Your designs seem to embody an interplay between asymmetry, balance, and movement. What role does the concept of movement play in your work, both visually and philosophically?
During my first exhibit in Seoul, my friend from middle school, artist Soah Woo, wrote about my work in relation to dance. She stated that dance is an ancient practice that humans use to express joy and energy, and that the energy and love I have for dance is channeled into my line drawings and forms that I create into my works. I loved that.
Movement through dance is both deliberate but also natural. There’s a system and a direction, and sometimes a choreography that has been designed, but there’s also room for flow, individuality and uniqueness, which embodies the natural world and also my physical and conceptual work.
