On the occasion of the exhibition How We Work: Smack Mellon at 30, Smack Mellon presents Care Package VIII by exhibiting artist Kyoung Eun Kang. The performance is the latest iteration of Care Package, an evolving live performance series rooted in a 17-year, long-distance collaboration between an artist in the United States and her mother in South Korea. During the performance, a care package sent by the artist’s mother is gradually unpacked. Through poetry, sound, movement, and audience participation, what begins as a package becomes a space where distance, memory, and care converge. The performance invites the audience into the uniquely intimate relationship between the artist and her mother, fostering a shared experience of connection, presence, and belonging.

Kyoung Eun Kang is an interdisciplinary artist born in South Korea and based in New York. Her practice spans a diverse range of media, including performance, video, painting, photography, and installation. Her work has been exhibited internationally and across the United States at venues like A.I.R. Gallery, Collar Works, NURTUREart, and BRIC Project Room in New York, as well as the Korean Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Korea. She has performed at the Queens Museum, Socrates Sculpture Park, and The Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas. She has received residencies and fellowships from the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, MacDowell, Smack Mellon, the International Studio & Curatorial Program, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, among others. She holds a BFA and MFA in painting from Hongik University in Seoul and an MFA from Parsons School of Design in New York.

Image: Kyoung Eun Kang, Care Package VII, 2024, performed at CPR – Center for Performance Research. Photo by Walter Wlodarczyk.