BTM: Assembly brings together works from Sung Hwan Bobby Park’s ongoing series of ceramic ‘bullet-proof helmets’, known in Korean as 방탄모 bangtanmo.

Developed over the past seven years, the BTM series has become an extensive body of work, including ceramics, mixed media, poetry, performance, drawings and photography made in reflection of the artist’s time serving in the Korean military from 2012 to 2014. 

Park moved from 청주시 Cheongju, South Korea, to Aotearoa in 2000 and was later required to complete two years of compulsory military service in order to retain his Korean citizenship. Known for being forcefully anti-LGBTQ+, the Korean military was a confronting place for Park to exist. 

In 2018, Park learned that the army had fabricated online dating profiles to entrap homosexual personnel. Those caught were subject to brutal interrogation and a non-expungable charge, impacting their access to health and civic services. 

Developing BTM was a retaliation for how the armed forces had treated Park’s queer comrades and a way for him to reclaim the identity he was forced to conceal while in service.

The bullet-proof helmet is the foundational component of BTM, giving Park a charged surface to embellish. The artist adds facial features, provocative glazes, horns, and hair to humanise the protective shells. He seeks to create a full military company of imagined personalities – outrageous, flamboyant and free to embody their queer identities. Here, the company Park has created so far is shown, with others yet to come.

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박성환 Sung Hwan Bobby Park is a Korean artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Park’s multidisciplinary practice explores personal experiences of queer identity using ceramics, mixed media, poetry, performance, drawing and photography. In 2023, as well as being the recipient of the Arts Foundation Springboard award, Park was runner-up in Waikato Museum’s National Contemporary Art Award and a finalist in the Portage Ceramic Awards.