Despite working day in day out with bike chains, you could say Korean artist Seo Young Deok is busy going nowhere.
At least that’s the impression you get when you learn he spent one whole year moulding a mile of bike chains, worth over £25,000, into a sculpture of a giant head over 7.5 metres tall.
His latest project Dystopia is currently touring the world, having been exhibited in Seoul and heading to SODA art gallery in Istanbul.
By choosing to work with bike chains the Korean artist, who graduated from Environmental Sculpture at the University of Seoul, is sending a very clear message about industrialisation and the human condition.
Bike chains, when attached to a bike where they belong, facilitate freedom and travel as an eco-friendly alternative to cars. By taking them and moulding them into human structures, many of which are broken, his work conveys anguish, damage and restriction.
Young Deok’s work has been likened by some to that of Anthony Gormley, former Turner Prize winner famed for his abstract human sculptures.
Are there similarities or are the pieces completely different? Let us know below.