“Walk the House” by Do Ho Suh at Tate Modern
In the heart of London, Tate Modern presents The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, an artistic encounter that invites visitors to rediscover the concept of home through works that are at once architectural, fragile and deeply evocative. This major retrospective—the artist’s first in the city in over a generation—spans three decades of his work, exploring memory, migration, identity and the ability to transport intimate spaces beyond physical and temporal borders.
From the very first visual impact, visitors are confronted with Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home (2013–2022), a replica of his former house – a Korean hanok – covered in mulberry paper rubbed with graphite to capture textures, contours, the marks of life. It is as if memory itself materialises, oscillating between the tangible and the ethereal.
The exhibition continues with Nest/s (2024), a walkway of interconnected rooms—each made from translucent polyester stretched over metal frames—where switches, handles and tiles recreate the spaces Suh has inhabited: from Seoul to London, New York and Berlin. It is a journey through his architectural memory, through the symbolic womb that defines us. Then, Perfect Home: London, Horsham, New York, Berlin, Providence, Seoul (2024) offers an almost ghostly white interior where household objects are stitched in colour onto the walls: an emotional map punctuated by knobs and sockets that identify places and times.
The intimate dimension intertwines with the visually captivating, resulting in an experience charged with emotion and memory. Seemingly everyday elements are transformed into monuments of nostalgia, inviting us to reconnect with our own personal journeys. The architectural replicas in fabric, paper and graphite act as metaphors for the act of migrating, rebuilding and persisting, carrying with them the weight—and the beauty—of the past.
The exhibition also features works on paper, videos and drawings—less spectacular but equally revealing—such as the Bridge project, an interdisciplinary experiment imagining the “perfect home” located, perhaps, in the Arctic Ocean, equidistant between the cities where he has lived. “It is a visual meditation on home that touches both the common and the profound”.
As the images show, Walk the House not only revisits a fragile chromatic repertoire, but also acts as a visual chronicle of what it means to be displaced, to keep alive a bond with what has been lived, and to build a home wherever one may find oneself. For all these reasons, Suh’s art poetically—and urgently—confronts the question: what do we do with home when we are no longer in it? Food for thought.
“I don’t live in one place, I live in between places.” Do Ho Suh
The exhibition can be visited at Tate Modern until 26 October 2025.
About Do Ho Suh
Do Ho Suh (Seoul, 1962) is one of the most influential contemporary artists of his generation, recognised for transforming the personal into the universal through monumental installations that explore memory, migration and the notion of home.
Trained in Fine Arts at Seoul National University and later at the Rhode Island School of Design and Yale University, his career reflects his own life’s journey across Korea, the United States and Europe. His works, created in translucent materials such as fabric or paper, recreate domestic spaces and architectures the artist has inhabited, turning them into emotional and poetic landscapes that invite viewers to reflect on identity, displacement and the invisible traces of everyday life.
“My memories inhabit the architectural pieces I create. They are physical, but also psychological and metaphorical.” Do Ho Suh
(*) Photos provided by Tate Modern. Cover photo Nest/s, 2024 (detail). Polyester, stainless steel. 410.1 × 375.4 × 2148.7 cm. and horizontal still 1: Perfect Home: London, Horsham, New York, Berlin, Providence, Seoul, 2024 (detail). Polyester, stainless steel. 455 × 575 × 1237 cm. Courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin (New York, Seoul & London) and Victoria Miro. Photo: Jeon Taeg Su © Do Ho Suh; slider photo 1: Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home, 2013–2022. Installation view at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia. Photo: Sebastian Mrugalski. Courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin (New York, Seoul & London) and Victoria Miro. © Do Ho Suh; slider photo 2: Perfect Home: London, Horsham, New York, Berlin, Providence, Seoul, 2024, installation view at The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House and vertical photo 2: Nest/s, 2024, installation view at The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House. Courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin (New York, Seoul & London) and Victoria Miro. Created with the support of Genesis. © Do Ho Suh. Photo © Tate (Jai Monaghan); slider photo 4: Rubbing/Loving: Company Housing of Gwangju Theater, 2012. Commissioned by Gwangju Biennale, 2012. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates. Courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin (New York, Seoul & London) and Victoria Miro. © Do Ho Suh; horizontal still 2: Nest/s, 2024, installation view at The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House; vertical photo 1: Wise Man, 2023, installation view at The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House; vertical photo 3 and slider 3: Perfect Home: London, Horsham, New York, Berlin, Providence, Seoul, 2024, installation view at The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House. Courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin (New York, Seoul & London) and Victoria Miro. Created with the support of Genesis. © Do Ho Suh. Photos © Tate (Sonal Bakrania).
