Ssamzie Space was founded in 2000 as a nonprofit, multi-disciplinary, cultural and arts organization to support the cutting-edge progressive artwork of Korea. It closed in 2009. It pursued the spirit of the avant-garde, underground, and cross-genre art. The program's goal was also to promote Korean art on an international scale. One of the programs was SSamzie Space's Artist-in-Residence studio program for national and international artists that facilitated studio workspace and networking opportunities between artists, curators, and art critics of Korea and abroad.

 After I was chosen as resident artist against great odds, I felt doubts about a competitive way of life. For me, the now served to prepare for a better tomorrow. I had lived for the future, which turns into the present each time. I wanted to look at the present that would soon go by rather than at the tomorrow that would soon come again.

 A blank canvas on the wall in Studio #503, the four four-leaf clovers inside the book, "Status anxiety" written by Alain de Botton, which I borrowed from Gyong-Hwan Gwon, the resident artist at Studio #501. An intern at the gallery, who said she was an art student and would soon be studying in England. A goodbye party for an artist from the Netherlands, "even if an artist does well, he's only a pretty and wild apricot… well, if you are to be a wild apricot, isn't it better to be a pretty one too?", which Gyong-Hwan Gwon said was like being an artist. *"A pretty, bitter apricot", this expression comes from an old Korean saying; it means that it looks delicious and has a lovely tinge of color, but tastes bad.

 Above the images are the records of the artists' daily lives in Ssamzie Space. They were my present. However, the seemingly liberal values and daily life of the artist do not seem free from the social competition structure whereby we have to compare ourselves to others endlessly and to push ourselves to be better. The images reveal passion for creation, desire for success, questioning of the position or status as an artist in a capitalist society, and what the artist misses in the pursuit of success.

 Furthermore, during SSamzie Space's Artist-in-Residence studio program I heard the surprising news, "Ssamzie Space to close." Witnessing the closing process impressed me with the harsh reality of the art world, namely, the continuing difficulty of running non-profit organizations to support the arts.
Unlike my initial intent for the work to look at the now and pay attention to trifles, the images in the book convey the anxiety of young artists for the future, the competitive structure of art and a sense of loss caused by the closing of the organization and the change in the use of the space.