Gap-Jil (Power Tripping)

Installation | Mixed media | Various size, 2019


Gap-Jil is a Korean term that refers to the abuse of power by someone against a person in a weaker position.

This work represents a power-tripping scene dealing with issues of emotional labor in service industries.

The purpose of this work is to highlight and reveal the structural relationship between emotional labor, job engagement, job burnout in service-related industries.

More specifically, the employee’s emotional burnout and psychological labor behavior in the workplace.

In particular, lots of employees in the service industry are forced to express only positive feelings rather than true feelings and have a silent emotional display rule in front of the employer or customer.

(needs of the expectation of the employer or customer.)

However, this behavior is regarded as implicit consent in many workplaces.






The linguistic feature represents a symbol of power in this work. And the structure seems completely balance yet unnerving at the same time; two acrylic posters and different kinds of sticks are stabbing both sides of the acrylic poster in various ways. The upper panel indicates the top dog (employee or customer) while the lower panel indicates the underdog (employee)

The structure is designed to be two acrylic posters and different kinds of sticks are stabbing both sides of an acrylic poster in various ways, by changing the angles.

The sentences on the upper part; personal favor, impolite and offensive word, sexual harassment while lower one is only showing “I’m sorry.”