Soo Kim, Night / Quartz, detail of artwork design for Wilshire/La Cienega Station platform train walls (in progress)

Soo Kim invites the public to share a personal memory — new or old — about Los Angeles by sending her phrases that begin with the words “I remember…”

One of three artists commissioned for the future Wilshire/La Cienega station on the Purple (D Line) Extension, Soo Kim is designing the platform artwork that riders will see while they wait for the train. Kim’s work will be featured alongside the work of artist Todd Gray, who is designing the station entrance artwork and Mariana Castillo Deball, who is designing the artwork for the station’s concourse level.

Kim’s artistic practice is photography-based. She meticulously cuts out sections and layers photographs she has taken of buildings and infrastructure in cities, creating dense and detailed new versions of city landscapes. For the Metro commission, Kim photographed iconic buildings along Wilshire Boulevard. Viewers will recognize these buildings among the intricate overlapping collage of lines, color and shapes.

The artist describes the work she is creating for the station:

A city is made up of the past and present, of memories as much as concrete. For this project, I am making two large-scale (4’ x 150’) murals for the platform level that represent my idea of the LA landscape; a picture of LA that combines many different ways of thinking about and imagining the city that is historical and futuristic, imaginary and real. The fantastical holds and reveals the fullness of reality, and just underneath the city’s surface, dwell stories and mysteries to be discovered.

Soo Kim’s project is inspired by the artist and writer Joe Brainard who wrote an unconventional memoir in 1970 entirely in phrases beginning with “I remember…,”excerpted below:

I remember seeing colors and designs by closing my eyes very tightly.
I remember empty towns. Green tinted windows. And neon signs just as they go off.
I remember people who like to look you straight in the eye for a long time as though you have some sort of mutual understanding about something.
I remember driving in cars and doing landscape paintings in my head. (I still do that.)
I remember rainbow-colored grease spots on the pavement after a rain.

Using the same phrase “I remember…,” Kim will create a communal memoir that connects different voices, experiences, perspectives, time frames and memories from a myriad of people into one — coming together as a unified voice that creates power, depth and range in its diversity.

To participate, please visit: http://www.sookim.org/#/i-remember/

Learn more about the art program for the Purple (D Line) Extension subway project here.

Click here for more information about Metro’s art program.  You can also follow Metro Art on Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr.

Caption: Soo Kim in her studio working on Night / Quartz, her artwork design for Wilshire/La Cienega Station platform (in progress)