Hyunjin Park: Jump

Working across performance, video, installation, and sculpture, Hyunjin Park explores the affective impact of the non-human—plants, living beings, and machines—on humans. Her work considers how these emotional resonances blur distinctions between the ancient and the contemporary, life and death, and in turn challenge the notion of the human as inherently superior to all else. In the Sunroom exhibition Jump, the artist focuses on the core obstacle in dog agility courses— “jumps” — which serve to build athleticism and confidence in the dog, and a bond of trust between the dog and handler.

After losing her living dog Popo three years ago, Park adopted Echo, a robot dog operated by AI, that she began training to enhance their inter-species communication and ultimately, to strengthen their bond. The agility training revealed a fundamental tension: while jumping is natural for a living dog, it is risky for Echo’s fragile, mechanical body. Rather than view this as a limitation, Park reimagines the jump as a fleeting suspension of the body—a longing for ascent and a brief defiance of gravity, where the jump becomes a threshold between limitation and possibility, life and non-life. Incorporating sculptural forms that evoke jumps alongside a video projection that includes footage from training sessions recorded through Echo’s perspective, the exhibition reflects on memories of Park’s prior relationship with a living pet. At the same time, it gives form to sentience, vulnerability, care, and failure through the intersecting lenses of human creativity and machine intelligence.

Public Program: Meet the Artists Hyunjin Park and Etienne Gisto Cipriani on Saturday, June 27, 1PM. In conversation with Wave Hill Curator of Visual Arts Rachel Raphaela Gugelberger, the exhibiting artists will discuss their Sunroom Project Space exhibitions, Jump and The Cryptozoological Vivarium, with a focus on how their works de-center humans and challenge speciesism—the discrimination against non-human animals. Note: artist Hyunjin Park will be participating in this program via Zoom.

Organized by Curator of Visual Arts Rachel Raphaela Gugelberger, the Sunroom Project Space is an open call opportunity for emerging, New York-area artists to develop and exhibit a site-specific project as a solo exhibition. The 2026 applications were reviewed by a panel of arts professionals including Klaudia Ofwona Draber, a curator, Strategy Consultant, Director of Programs at Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, and founder of KODA—a social practice residency for mid-career artists; artist Magdalena Dukiewicz (2025 Sunroom Project Space), whose practice is rooted in processes and materials that explore the intersections of the organic and industrial materials; and Gugelberger.