The Genesis Exhibition:
Do Ho Suh: Walk The House
Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1 9TG
1 May 2025 – 19 October 2025
‘Walk The House’, refers to taking your house with you when you move. Traditional Korean houses were built without screws or nails, only interlocking dovetail joints so that the building could be disassembled and moved. The central piece of Do Ho Suh’s exhibition, celebrating the past three decades, comprises of various places/rooms Do Ho has lived in, lined up as a corridor, each exquisitely and meticulously sewn, using polyester material. The corridor is book-ended by his early Korean family home and his current London home. An absolute delight, the transparency allowing the viewers to see through the various layers, to contemplate buildings, people and objects.
Staircase, 2016, Gelatine tissue thread embedded in paper.
At first glance, this appears to be an exotic bird or a fashion creation—it is an extraordinary reducted beautiful 1:1 red staircase.
Robin Hood Gardens (2018) Video, colour and sound (stereo) Duration 28 min, 33sec.
A very wide screen video, panning across building and features, highlighting a housing block in Woolmore Street, London, E14 OHG, which was about to be demolished after years of uncertainty for the residents.
Nest/s, 2024, Polyester fabric and stainless steel.
1:1 scale fabric replicas of different room thresholds from former apartments. Absolutely intriguing, to be able to look so closely at the wonderful artistry, the skilful sewing of the fabric reproductions of the buildings and the details of the numerous doors, light fittings, sockets and domestic fixtures.
Perfect Home: London, Horsham, New York, Berlin, Providence, Seoul.
This is a 1:1 scale outline of Suh’s London home. Further numerous fabric fixtures and fittings in all sorts of colours from his former homes are arrayed across the walls at different heights, some eye line, some high and low. Each is positioned where they would be found in their original location.
Rubbing/Loving: Company Housing of Gwangju Theatre (2012)
The rubbing of an empty space left empty after the Gwangju Uprising in 1980, a mass protest against the South Korean military government. A mournful, grey exhibit reflecting the tragic suppression by the military.
Home Within Home (1/9 Scale)
A scale 3D-scan recreation of Suh’s childhood Seoul home positioned inside a house of rented apartments in Providence, where he lodged as a student. Transparent, translucent shuttered construction, using familiar colour palette.
Rubbing/Loving: Seoul Home 2013-22
Graphite on paper, aluminium, LED lighting; video, monitor, colour and sound (stereo) Mulberry paper wrapping his imposing Korean family childhood home. Rubbed with graphite and left to soak up the elements for nine months.
The last exhibit, The Bridge Project, is based on his speculative proposition that a ‘perfect home’ could be 750 kilometres equidistant between Seoul, New York and London, in the Arctic Ocean. There are various research and reference pieces questioning the environmental, social and ecological issues of his provocation. Includes an extraordinary SOS (Smallest Occupiable Space), 2024, a futurist survival suit/pod which hangs above the project space.






