In Candle (Explosion), Jaehun Park employs the candle as a potent symbol of hope, fragility, and resistance. This hyper-realistic 3D simulation video captures a burning candle’s transformation, culminating in an explosive finale. By dissolving the boundary between physical and virtual realms, the work explores how political censorship and capitalist ideologies reshape, and sometimes destroy, the values and meanings embedded in our symbols.
Deeply tied to South Korea’s candlelight protests for democracy, the candle in this work sheds its traditional associations and becomes a metaphor for the vulnerability of ideals. With Candle (Explosion), Park invites viewers to confront an unsettling reality: what remains when the flame of hope is extinguished in a world where technology and power dominate our most human symbols?