Awardee Exhibition: Heehyun Choi
19th KAFA Awardee Exhibition
Heehyun Choi: “A Motionless Movie”
Opening Reception
Thursday, November 23, 2025
6:30–8:00pm
Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles Gallery
The Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles (KCCLA), in partnership with Korea Arts Foundation of America (KAFA), proudly present The 19th Korea Arts Foundation of America Award Recipient Exhibition: A Motionless Movie. The exhibition will be on view from October 23 through November 14, 2025, at the KCCLA Art Gallery (5505 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036), with an opening reception on Thursday, October 23, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.
KAFA is a non-profit public benefit organization based in Los Angeles dedicated to promoting creativity, research, and exhibitions in the arts. Funding and support for this exhibition are provided by KAFA and the Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles.
Heehyun Choi is a moving-image artist working between South Korea and the United States. Her practice spans cinema and exhibition spaces, where she creates experimental films using analog formats such as 16mm and Super 8mm. Through her exploration of film and video media, Choi examines the intricate relationships between camera, subject, and image. Born in Los Angeles and raised in Seoul, she holds a B.A. in Art & Technology from Sogang University and an M.F.A. in Film and Video from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
In her solo exhibition A Motionless Movie, Choi presents four new moving-image works alongside a series of embroidery pieces. The essay film A Motionless Movie, which shares its title with the exhibition, takes inspiration from a 1920s Korean newspaper article titled “Umjigiji-Anneun Yeonghwa (A Motionless Movie).” The work imagines the perspectives of Korean women readers of the newspaper’s “Home and Women’s” section, loosely following the trajectory of American actress Clara Bow featured in the article. The black-and-white silent film A Dark Room portrays a woman who may have encountered a camera obscura—a primal form of cinema that predates modern film language. The single-channel video Neolttwigi and the three-channel video The Wedding Chest blur the boundaries between the front and back of the camera, the inside and outside of the frame, and between those who create images and those who become them, presenting cameras that exist in shifting forms. The Chronophotography series fragments images—already fossilized in the history of photography and cinema—and reweaves them through traditional Korean embroidery and patchwork techniques.
KCCLA Director Haedon Lee stated, “This exhibition is particularly meaningful as it presents the 19th KAFA Art Award Winner’s Exhibition—an award recognized for its prestige within the Korean American art community. We are delighted to showcase the works of Heehyun Choi, an artist who has created a unique sensory world by blending traditional cinematic language with handcrafted mediums. We hope visitors will experience and share the imagination and experimental spirit of a young artist whose work unfolds at the intersection of Korean and American cultural experiences.”
KAFA President Gloria Lee remarked, “For the past 35 years, KAFA has continuously supported emerging artists in developing their own artistic voices. We hope this exhibition will highlight the individuality and vision of the next generation of artists while bringing renewed vitality to the Korean American art scene. “
The opening reception will take place on Thursday, October 23, at 6:30 p.m. at the Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles. The exhibition is free and open to the public through Friday, November 14, 2025.
