In traditional Korean funerary customs, wooden figurines known as kokdu were crafted to accompany the departed on their final journey, both adorning the bier and placed inside the coffin to ease sorrow and guide the soul. Far from being mere ritual objects, kokdu embody an enduring conversation between the living and the dead—a dialogue that offers comfort, continuity, and healing.

This exhibition reinterprets kokdu through the eyes of contemporary artists, who respond to personal and collective grief with warmth, resilience, and imagination. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought about immense loss and isolation, these works serve as visual rites of passage—ceremonies not of mourning alone, but of transformation and renewal. Through each piece, viewers are invited to encounter sorrow with tenderness and to rediscover the restorative power of love that transcends absence.