“Vergeblichkeit” © 2026, Minjae Kim

Vergeblichkeit explores the inevitability of disappearance. Rather than presenting futility as a negative outcome, the work considers transience as a condition that gives value to existence itself. What is fleeting becomes more intense precisely because it cannot remain. By focusing on the moment where presence dissolves into absence, the photograph reflects on impermanence as a continuous process of transformation rather than a final ending.

Based in Seoul, South Korea, Minjae Kim is an emerging artist currently attending Saint Paul Preparatory Seoul as a junior. His work delves into the delicate interplay between the formation and collapse of form, capturing the “subtle states” that exist in the periphery of perception. Through his photography, he explores the moment where fixed structures dismantle to reveal new possibilities, framing hope not as a static outcome, but as a persistent, reconfiguring process. By documenting the simultaneous occurrence of existence and disappearance, he invites viewers to find vivid meaning in the fleeting and the incomplete.