What does it mean to carry home with you, wherever you go? This question lies at the heart of Do Ho Suh’s artistic exploration, and his latest show, The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, which offers a deeply immersive journey into his reflections on home, memory and identity. On view from May 1 to October 19, 2025, at the Tate Modern, the showcase marks the South Korean artist’s first major solo exhibition in London, United Kingdom, in two decades. Curious site-specific installations, sculptures, videos and drawings take over the gallery space, coalescing three decades of work that spans Seoul, New York and London; the three cities Suh has called home.

The exhibition’s title draws inspiration from a Korean expression linked to the hanok, a traditional house designed to be disassembled and relocated. This concept resonates throughout Suh’s oeuvre, as his works explore the idea of a home that transcends physical boundaries, and a space that 'is not only a physical one, but an intangible, metaphorical and psychological one.' In a press statement, the artist describes how his work beautifully resonates with the place it is sitting in. He says, "For me, ‘space’ is that which encompasses everything. Fifteen years ago, London became my home city. Tate Modern is the museum I have spent the most time in since being here, it's the museum my children have grown up visiting, so this exhibition is particularly special to me. I like introducing domestic interlopers into museum architecture and at Tate, we are using one big open space for most of the work, which includes new installations that I’ve been thinking about and working on for many years.”

The evocative presentation invites visitors to reflect on their own experiences of space and memory. Among the highlights is the ambitious Nest/s (2024), which brings together corridors and entryways from Suh’s life in a kaleidoscopic tapestry of spaces. A variation of his renowned Hubs series, the installation intertwines rooms from various places the artist has inhabited, forming what he calls an ‘impossible architecture’. By merging architectural styles and elements from different periods and cities, the work creates a dynamic interplay of movement and connection, capturing the essence of migration and layered memories of home.

Accessibility was a crucial consideration in the development of Nest/s. Working closely with the Tate team, the South Korean artist ensured that the installation would meet accessible design standards, allowing wheelchair users to navigate the space. This thoughtful approach underscores Tate’s commitment to making art available to all and reflects Suh’s belief in the universality of his themes. Another centrepiece of the exhibition is Perfect Home: London, Horsham, New York, Berlin, Providence, Seoul (2024), a vibrant 1:1 outline of Suh’s current London home, filled with architectural details such as doorknobs, light switches, and electrical sockets. Tracing the domestic spaces the artist and his family have inhabited over the years, the project playfully reimagines his personal history as a shared, immersive experience. 

Suh’s exploration of memory and space also extends to his earlier works, such as Who Am We? (2000), a mosaic of thousands of tiny portrait photographs sourced from school yearbooks. This piece reflects on collective and individual identity, themes that continue to resonate in today’s transnational and migratory world. Similarly, the Rubbing/Loving Project: Company Housing of Gwangju Theater (2012) and Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home (2013-22) delve into historical and personal narratives. The latter, a decade-long endeavour, involves covering the internal structure of Suh’s childhood home with paper and graphite, creating delicate impressions that capture the essence of the space.

Beyond these monumental installations, the exhibition reveals lesser-known aspects of Suh’s practice, including his works on paper. One standout is Staircase (2016), created by dissolving a paper sculpture onto a wet sheet, translating its three-dimensional form into a two-dimensional plane. These evocative pieces, like Suh’s fabric architectures, offer portable versions of his past homes, embodying his ongoing dialogue with memory and mobility.

Thread drawings are also prominently featured in the exhibition. These intricate works, made by sewing vibrantly coloured threads into handmade paper, echo Suh’s use of fabric to delineate three-dimensional spaces. They reveal his deep engagement with material experimentation, blending ancient techniques with contemporary innovations. The exhibition also incorporates two of Suh’s video works, Robin Hood Gardens (2018) and Dong In Apartments (2022), which employ photogrammetry to create digital models of physical spaces. These videos explore the built environment as a living organism, bearing witness to the traces left by past inhabitants. Through this process, Suh grapples with the impermanence of memory and the impossibility of preserving places or moments in their entirety.

Suh’s practice resonates deeply with conversations about migration, displacement and urbanisation. As Nabila Abdel Nabi, senior curator, International Art (Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational) at the Tate Modern, tells STIR, “Home is in many ways a departure point for Suh’s rich interrogations into the workings of memory, processes of migration in an increasingly transnational world, the negotiation of self as you enter into a new society and how the places we have experienced and the people we have encountered shape us.” Suh's works navigate the speculative and the real, addressing critical issues such as national borders, climate crisis, and land rights through imaginative frameworks like the ongoing Bridge Project, which envisions connecting all his past homes.

Recreating Suh’s intricate fabric architectures within the Tate Modern’s constraints posed significant challenges. Suh’s installations often require physical and conceptual interventions within the museum space, disrupting traditional layouts and inviting new ways of engagement. For the first time since 2016, Tate has removed all gallery walls in the exhibition space, creating an open layout that encourages visitors to meander, return and loop back; an experience akin to the workings of memory itself. This approach aligns with Suh’s ethos of undoing permanence, both in his works and the spaces they inhabit. Reflecting on this, the curator adds, “Tate’s relationship with Suh goes back to the acquisition of the work Staircase –III (2010) – a fabric architecture installation based on the narrow stairs that once connected his apartment to his landlord’s in New York and which is in part created anew each time it is displayed with panels measured to fit the spaces in which the work is shown.”

Suh’s artistic journey is one of constant evolution, blending personal history with universal themes. His ability to merge ancient craft with cutting-edge technology reflects a tireless curiosity and a deep understanding of how materials can convey complex narratives. The curator observes, “Suh’s tireless material investigations and experimentations highlight his ability to marry a deep knowledge of ancient techniques with the latest technologies, such as photogrammetry and 3D printing.”

Walk the House is more than an exhibition; it is an invitation to explore the spaces we carry within us and the memories that shape our identities. The artist examines the tension between absence and presence, where the physical structure becomes a placeholder for lived experiences. These ethereal reconstructions offer a poignant commentary on how the spaces we inhabit linger in our consciousness long after we leave them behind. By traversing the sculpture artist’s fabric architectures, thread drawings and video art, visitors are encouraged to reflect on their own relationships with home and belonging. Supported by Genesis Art Initiatives, a programme committed to shaping cultural legacy and celebrating artistic expression, the exhibition bridges the personal and the collective, the tangible and the intangible, and becomes a profound meditation on what it means to inhabit the world. It reaffirms Suh’s position as a vital voice in contemporary art, offering a compelling perspective on how we navigate and reimagine the spaces we call home.

‘The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House’ is on view until October 19, 2025, at the Tate Modern, London.