Inspired by the Tibetan sand mandala, Cakra-2552-a contemplates the cyclical nature of creation, dissolution, and renewal. Choe U-Ram was deeply moved by the ritual in which Tibetan monks labor for days constructing an elaborate mandala from colored sand, only to sweep it away immediately upon completion. For the artist, this act reveals impermanence not as an ending but as a condition of existence, one in which creation and disappearance perpetually give rise to one another. The title’s reference to the Buddhist Era further evokes notions of cosmology, cyclical time, and spiritual reflection.
Cakra-2552-a marks a pivotal shift in Choe’s artistic practice. While his earlier Anima Machine series envisioned mechanical beings that blurred the boundaries between technology and life, this work turns its attention toward the complex relationships that movement itself generates. Countless trajectories approach one another without ever colliding, pass by, disperse, and converge again, expanding outward before folding back into the whole. Through this choreography of movement, the sculpture evokes the interconnected nature of life, in which each element exists only in relation to others.
Radiating outward from a central axis, meticulously engineered metallic elements rotate in multiple synchronized layers, each following its own orbital path without ever colliding. Their slow, unbroken movement generates ever-changing geometric configurations that never quite repeat. Like the shifting symmetry of a mandala or the orbital movements of celestial bodies, the sculpture exists not as a fixed image but as a process unfolding in time. The work invites sustained contemplation, encouraging viewers to experience movement itself as a form of visual meditation.
For Choe, movement is a way of making visible what otherwise cannot be seen. Rather than settling into a fixed form, Cakra-2552-a unfolds through time, inviting a sustained gaze as its shifting geometries continually emerge and recede. In its slow and unceasing rotation, the sculpture offers not an image of the cosmos, but an experience of its rhythm.
