“Where From, Where To”
September 13 – November 8, 2026

Opening: September 13, 2026, 2 – 7 pm, with an introduction at 6 pm
After that, the exhibition is open every Sunday from 2 to 6 pm.

Where do I come from, where am I going?
The works of Seongwon Park emerge from observations of urban spaces and their often-overlooked details. Facades, vacant buildings, kiosks, windows, curtains, or traces of time become the starting points for an artistic exploration of presence, memory, and absence.
At the heart of her work are places that have lost their original function. The artist is interested in those moments when architecture is no longer defined solely by its utility, but rather by the traces, overlays, and changes that have become inscribed over time. Through drawings, paintings, and sculptures, she transforms these observations into new visual spaces.
During her residency at the haubrok foundation, Park turned her attention to vacant buildings in Berlin-Lichtenberg. Many of these structures exist in a state between the past and the future: their original significance has faded, and their future remains uncertain. For the artist, they embody a powerful absence – a void that signifies not stagnation, but transition.
The starting point for the project is the question Where do I come from, where am I going?, which Park discovered in the form of lettering inside an abandoned building. Originally directed at people, this question is transferred to the buildings themselves in Park’s work. The abandoned structures appear as silent witnesses to social changes and, at the same time, reflect fundamental human experiences of orientation, loss, and new beginnings.
In her works, the buildings become portraits of a state of being. Their external forms remain intact, while their original function recedes into the background. The resulting works invite viewers to reflect on the relationship between people and space and to reconsider the meaning of absence—not as an end, but as an open state full of possibilities.

Seongwon Park is the first recipient of the HAR Haubrok Artist Residency, a collaboration between the haubrok foundation and the Berlin University of the Arts, and works with a wide variety of media, ranging from photography, painting, and drawing to sculpture and installation. In her installations, she reproduces socio-architectural constellations drawn from the urban environment. Through her sculptures and installations, she portrays urban situations with a keen sense of their emotional content. She also incorporates her perspective on Germany as a native of South Korea into her artistic practice. With humor, she uncovers the absurdities of everyday life and transforms them into installation-based situations.
Born in South Korea in 1990, she studied sculpture at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts in Kiel and at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 2024, she completed her studies as a master’s student under Professor Ina Weber.

The jury for the first HAR Haubrok Art Residency consisted of Dorothea von Hantelmann (Professor of Art History at Bard College Berlin), Judith Hopf (Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Dresden), Stefan Neuner (Professor of Art History, Art Studies, and Art Theory at the Berlin University of the Arts), Mark Lammert (Professor of Painting and Drawing at the Berlin University of the Arts), and Axel Haubrok (Chairman of the Board of the haubrok foundation, Berlin).
As of December 2025

Duration of the grant: December 1, 2025 – September 30, 2026