Rokoko
2024
fabric
32"w x 72"h x 20"d
This vivid, hybrid gown merges the extravagance of 18th-century Rococo fashion with the layered symbolism of Korean tradition. Composed from six disassembled hanboks, the dress retains and repositions signature elements—floral embroidery, traditional patterns, and textile motifs—onto a European silhouette historically associated with aristocratic femininity and spectacle. The ornate hairstyle, modeled after the eoyeo meori of the Chosun-era Korean court, anchors the piece firmly in Korean cultural history, while also emphasizing its performative nature. By reconstructing the hanbok into a form once reserved for Western royalty, Ma Bricolage #5 complicates ideas of origin, beauty, and belonging. This work asks: What happens when garments of national identity are unraveled and reassembled into a globalized, anachronistic form? In this collision of cultural codes, a new visual language—and new identity—is born.







