On ne peut pas être carré | Mona Young-eun KIM

On ne peut pas être carré (We Can’t Be Disciplined), 2024

Backlit lightboxes, solid wood, plexiglass, blue adhesive, grey paint

Lightbox dimensions:

80 × 60 × 8 cm

30 × 25 × 5 cm

Inspired by the French expression “être carré” (to be precise, structured, or disciplined), Mona Young-eun Kim translates her experiences of co-creation atelier Perceptions through a distinctive artistic approach.

Unlike individual creation, often favored in the visual arts, co-creation proves difficult to organize in a “square” way — that is, in a strictly ordered and controlled manner.

Through geometric pictorial and sculptural forms, she materializes this reflection: a grey square painted in the background and two parallelogram-shaped sculptures.

These forms embody human presences — those of the participants — highlighting the impossibility of perfect uniformity.

These luminous works express both a tension — linked to the challenges of collective creation — and a hope: that of a shared development grounded in the recognition of individual differences.

This project was developed at Atelier Millefeuille as part of a training program in lightbox fabrication attended by Mona Young-eun Kim.