Hanna Shim: Pillow Garden

“I want to create a welcoming space where people can feel soft again—where they can laugh, be silly, feel safe, free, and truly happy. It’s something our world really needs right now.” --  Hanna Shim

Hanna Shim’s Pillow Garden is an immersive installation featuring oversized plant-inspired soft sculptures that transform the gallery into a sensory haven. Her playful, organic forms invite visitors to explore the dreamy possibilities of textiles, colour and sound inspired by the artist’s Korean heritage.

Shim’s sculptures have a sweet, hand-drawn quality, like a child’s drawing come to life. Their vivid colours and cartoonish curves are complemented by a soothing soundscape, The Song of the Tree, which blends traditional Korean instruments with ambient sounds from Totara Park, near the artist’s studio in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Made in collaboration with composer Seung Yeon Park, this sonic tapestry creates a harmonious connection between New Zealand’s natural environment and Shim’s imagined world.

As the artist describes: “For me, this work challenges those hard boundaries we often encounter – between hard and soft, art and craft, adulthood and childhood, or even dominance and marginality. I’m always looking for a space where these contrasts can coexist peacefully, a personal vision of Utopia.”

Based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Shim completed her MFA at Elam School of Fine Arts in 2016. She has exhibited widely across Aotearoa, including solo exhibitions such as ‘Smer Smer’ at Aigantighe Gallery (2019), ‘Mushroom Room’ (2020), and ‘Wishing You Well’ Enjoy Gallery (2022). An early version of the Pillow Garden was exhibited at Studio One Toi Tu, Auckland in 2024.

^{Hanna Shim, detail of Pillow Garden, 2024.}