‘Organs, Breathes, Salt’ by Jsuk Han
In collaboration with Walyalup Fremantle Art Centre and Incheon Art Platform.
Found objects suspended from the ceiling trusses act as speaker units, connected by cables radiating from a central control system. The installation evolves slowly and unpredictably over the exhibition period, accumulating and shifting like salt itself.
‘Organs, Breathes, Salt’ is an outcome from the ongoing Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre and Incheon Art Platform Artist in Residence reciprocal exchange.
Friday 24 April 2026
Doors 6pm, Live Performance 7pm
Jsuk Han will be collaborating with Raras Sukardi (clarinettist) and Sage Pbbbt (ritual vocalist) during the live performance.
Saturday 25 April, 1-7pm
Sunday 26 April, 1-7pm
Audiences are invited to view the site-specific installation and Jsuk Han will be present to discuss the residency exchange and project.
JSUK HAN
Jsuk Han is an artist working across sound, sculpture and installation, with a practice grounded in feedback, resonance and spatial listening. Using self-built audio systems, Han creates site-responsive works that make audible the often-unseen relationships between place, memory and environment.
ABOUT WALYALUP FREMANTLE ARTS CENTRE RESIDENCIES
WFAC’s Studio Program offers artists across all disciplines the opportunity to explore and develop their work within a vibrant and supportive environment. Residencies range from one to six months, and artists are provided a studio best-suited to their practice. The program fosters innovation and collaboration, creating a dynamic community for artistic exploration.
ABOUT INCHEON ART PLATFORM
Incheon Art Platform is a contemporary arts complex located in the historic port area of Haean-dong, Jung-gu, Incheon. Housed within renovated heritage buildings, IAP supports national and international artists through a diverse residency program spanning multiple creative disciplines.
What was the inspiration for Organs, Breathes, Salt and how long did it take to put together? What are some of the objects you have turned into makeshift speakers?
The inspiration came from the Naval Store itself. When I first visited the space, I was struck by how the building seemed to already be breathing — the harbour wind moving through it, the resonance of the old industrial structure alive within the walls. I wanted to make that audible rather than impose something onto it. The title came from thinking about what the space fundamentally is: an organ and a body that breathes air, accumulates material over time, and holds the traces of everything that has passed through it.
The work came together over several weeks during my residency at Walyalup Fremantle Arts Centre. The objects suspended from the ceiling trusses are found objects collected in and around Fremantle — weathered materials that carry their own histories (particular thanks to Sandy McKendrick for providing the buoys). Each has a speaker module attached to its surface, which is also used as a microphone — speaker and microphone operate on the same principle and can be reversed. Sound is projected through the object's own natural resonant frequencies. The object becomes a membrane.
Can you explain how the installation works? Are the sounds pre-recorded or dynamically generated? Are lights or other mediums used?
Both real-time audio feedback and field recordings gathered directly around Fremantle are played simultaneously, projected through a 10-channel multichannel sound system using SPAT, a spatial audio system. Multiple variables are collected and feed into each other continuously: real-time Fremantle weather data (wind speed, wind direction, humidity, temperature and atmospheric pressure), flocking algorithms — a kind of digital murmuration — and the measured resonant frequencies of the Naval Store building itself, all fed into a feedback loop in constant circulation. Because these three systems interact continuously, the sound is never the same twice. The installation will sound very different on a still morning than during a Fremantle Doctor in the afternoon.
The work uses sound only, with minimal artificial lighting. I wanted the darkness and the industrial space itself to become part of the work.
Will the live performance be improvised or prepared? Are you playing live as well?
The performances by Sage Pbbbt and Raras Sukardi will be largely improvised, though both performers have spent time listening to the installation in advance and have developed a sense of its tendencies. The idea is not for them to perform over the installation but alongside it — their voices and tones enter the feedback system through microphones, absorbed into the resonant frequencies of the building, until they become indistinguishable from the installation itself. I will also be active within the system during the opening, adjusting parameters in response to what is happening in the room. It is a three-way conversation between the performers, the system and the space.
Who are some of your artistic influences and what inspires your work?
My practice is grounded in the history of feedback and systems-based art — Alvin Lucier, John Cage, and the broader tradition of site-specific sound work. Philosophically I am drawn to ideas around self-organisation, circular structure and repetition — Deleuze's thinking on difference and repetition, Zhuangzi, the feedback loop as a model for how things persist and transform over time. In terms of place, I am consistently inspired by the relationship between built environments and natural forces — the way a building accumulates the history of what has passed through it, the way salt forms through filtration and time. Fremantle itself has been a significant influence on this work — the Fremantle Doctor, the harbour, the geology of the Coral Coast.