By Cammi Climaco
July 2, 2025
Michelle Im’s first solo show at DIMIN gallery coincidentally comes right when the news algorithm is reporting story after story of people behaving badly on airplanes. Air travel apparently brings out the absolute worst in people. When I walked into Michelle’s show, her sculptures of Korean female flight attendants were right on time.
The eight sculptures, each around three feet tall, are installed on pedestals facing each other in a U formation which gave the work an immediate sense of ceremony. Each figure is portrayed at work; one is holding a piece of seatbelt for the dreaded demonstration at the beginning of the flight, one holding a coffee pot ready to pour, or two figures are adorably making each side of a hand heart emoji. Michelle is shining a light on this world where flight attendants are giving people coffee and blankets, but also quelling fights, cleaning up bodily fluids of strangers, delivering babies and taping criminals to their seats. Who would want that job? These women.
The sculptures are forever charming. They look demure and prepared in their crisp pastel uniforms, making them appear to be the perfect servers. The uniforms are reminiscent of the Pan Am look of the 1960s but each figure has their own personality. While these workers are so sweet and gentle, they also oversee your experience. Amongst all this grace, I felt there was an implied sense of ennui. They’re all in skirts and heels, their scarves look like they could cut you.
Clay is the perfect material for this work with its history of immortalization of working-class heroes. From Korean Unified Silla period warrior sculptures, to the Xian Terra Cotta Army, to figurines of farmers from Meissen, ceramic artists have always used clay to mirror culture. Michelle uses material surfaces for effect; satins for the uniforms, glosses on the nylons on the legs, and shining hair. Each figure is standing on a serving tray or piece of luggage, a funny and clever device to both make the sculptures themselves stand but also ground them to their jobs in perpetuity.
In this body of work, Michelle is giving humor with sincerity. The pieces talk about Korean culture, feminism, and labor with an underlying wit which makes this show so likable. Her overall style has a light, fun, illustrated quality and keeps the tone of the show serious. The attention to detail is immaculate, in her observations of the job itself, but also in their bodies and faces. Michelle is portraying them with a deep respect, love and care.
Michelle and I have worked with each other at several ceramic studios in NYC for a few years and I was lucky enough for her to take some time to elaborate on the work with me.
Michelle, Congratulations on your show Hello, Goodbye! You have the unique experience of living in both Korea and the US. You’ve spent a lot of time on looooong plane rides between the two countries. How did your experience influence this work?
Hey Cammi, I had a pretty atypical upbringing as a Korean American. While most immigrate from Korea to the US, I experienced the reverse—I moved to Korea when I was eleven. It left a lasting impression on me. At the time, I couldn’t speak, read, or write Korean, and I was suddenly thrown into the traditional Korean school system. Compared to the quaint suburban public school I attended outside of Boston, Korean schooling felt rigid, almost militaristic. One of the starkest contrasts—especially as an already “Americanized” adolescent—was the strong emphasis on collectivism, a mindset that felt foreign to me.
During my residency at the Museum of Arts and Design last year, I focused on exploring this cultural duality. I was researching historical Korean ceramic forms, particularly the Moon Jar from the Joseon Dynasty. I was initially drawn to it out of formalist curiosity and because of its near-obsessive fetishized popularity in contemporary ceramics, both in Korea and the US. Traditionally made by joining two wheel-thrown hemispherical bowls, the Moon Jar forms a serene, unified whole. The more time I spent with it, the more it began to resonate as a metaphor for my own identity—two worlds, joined together.
On one flight back to New York on Korean Air, I found myself thinking about how “home,” for me, exists in transition. That in-between space on the aircraft—suspended between my two homes—perfectly encapsulated my lived experience. Much like the serenity and completeness of the Moon Jar, I saw a parallel in the Korean Air flight attendants: poised, composed, and perfectly imperfect, performing each duty with ritualistic care and attentiveness.
That fifteen-hour journey between Korea and the US always becomes a kind of meditation on life for me. The plane is its own surreal bubble. For a brief moment, everyone, regardless of background, is on the same path, at the mercy of the pilot and the choreographed performance of the flight attendants.
The title of the show is absolutely perfect. Since I follow you on Instagram, I know you’ve been working on these figures for a year or so and I love the way they came together. How did you see the figures in the space for the show?
When I had my studio visit with Rob Dimin at MAD last year, we initially discussed presenting the figures as a group reminiscent of the Terra Cotta Warriors—perhaps standing together on a single pedestal. But rather than creating a uniform formation, I thought it would be more compelling to break them apart and highlight their individuality.
I wanted the installation to resonate with my own experience of walking down the aisle of an aircraft and being greeted by flight attendants standing in a row—each similar in role, yet distinct in presence. I wanted the arrangement intentional but not overly choreographed. I also wanted the overall feel to be instantly digestible, carrying a sense of optimism almost to the point of surrealism which is how I feel when I see the Korean Air flight attendants in person. There is such humanity in their facial expressions and poise in real life and yet, the level of perfection feels unreal.
I’ve also been a bit obsessed with Severance, and stylistically, the surreal tone of the show resonates with me. There’s a line by the character Ms. Casey that has stuck with me that goes along the lines of “Enjoy each fact equally.” (she’s supposed to be a wellness guide or like a therapist in the show). While not a direct influence, I had the idea in my mind while planning the installation—to invite viewers to consider each figure individually and equally, without hierarchy or distraction.
Yes! Totally surreal! The eyes in the pieces are uncanny, they are looking right at the viewer with a feeling of serene joy! They are charming and funny and very dark at the same time. There’s a lot of power in controlling how much soda a person gets, and, as a former server (and I know you are too) they feel like working-class heroes. Will you talk about women, labor and how you serve up humor in your work?
“There’s a lot of power in controlling how much soda a person gets…” I laughed out loud
Yes, of course I’m pulling from my own experience having worked in the service industry. I was a Captain at a Michelin-starred fine dining restaurant, where we performed synchronized service and followed endless rules for every detail of service. While the pressure to perform in this environment eventually wore me down, I still find the dance beautiful. There’s comfort in repeating the same movements, doing the same acts, making the same jokes, knowing what to expect every night. Behind the veil of perfection and poised labor, there is a very special bond among workers in hospitality, one that is uniquely tender and intimate.
I wanted to relive that sense of camaraderie, especially among women through these sculptures. It’s a bond that is sweet, but there’s a dark aspect to it as well: the sense of being stuck, of becoming entrenched in the life of a service worker. You encourage your teammates to seek out a better opportunity or to pursue their passions but deep down, there’s reluctance to see your fellow worker leave. And when you do finally leave the industry, you kind of lose your family. You’re suddenly on the outside- “the one who got out”- as if it were a cult. When I worked in service, I used to joke about my civilian life outside of the restaurant, how I was “pursuing a career as an artist,” which I think everyone thought was cute.
I think the server role is deeply stigmatized in society. It’s often seen as something we shouldn’t aspire to or almost viewed as adjacent to sex work. And I’d like to challenge those assumptions. Not every woman will be a CEO. What about the ordinary extraordinary women who find themselves in the service industry? I see these women as powerful and resilient, worthy of admiration.
And it takes a high level of skill to manage other people’s emotions, especially on an aircraft where you can’t just leave a high-stress situation. While building this series, I was reading this book called “Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling” by Arlie Russell Hochschild which talks about emotional labor work through the lens of flight attendants and debt collectors. And I find it interesting to think about how emotional labor becomes a commodity in the service industry—a form of labor that is invisible, but deeply valuable for a company. That’s what a lot of women do for work, invisible labor, whether it’s a paid gig or not.
But ultimately, when it comes to issues of class, gender, and race, I want to leave space for interpretation. My intention isn’t to present the work as overly serious or heavy-handed in its critique of the world, but to make it accessible and readable to people of all backgrounds. Humor is a powerful tool. I talk a lot about the beauty of synchronized service, but the performed acts themselves are totally absurd. One sculpture, for instance, is doing the demonstration of fastening a seatbelt, a routine that I find completely ridiculous when flying. The humor is encapsulated in the smile too. The smile is part of the performance, and it has to feel 200% real for it to work in your favor. At the core, I simply want people to feel empathy for humanity through these sculptures.
There is such a dark side to this job that I can’t help but think about their interior lives. They also have a touch of “Stepford” about them. At your opening, we briefly talked about the strength of your hands after making this show, and on your Instagram, it looks like you made them in sections. Will you talk about the experience of building these pieces, the scale of the work, etc.? My friend commented that they had really nice bums, by the way.
I’ve been thinking a lot about masochism and masculinity in relation to ceramics. There’s this common perception that working with clay is a purely relaxing, good-vibes only activity. But in reality, ceramics is intensely physical—especially when you start scaling up. My mom always tells me I do “man’s work.”
I really enjoy the problem-solving, the strategy, and the sort of “made-up engineering” that ceramics demands. There was a lot of troubleshooting involved in making these pieces. While I had my materials mostly dialed in after years of testing and experimenting with clay and glaze combinations, I had to think carefully about modularity. My kiln size imposed limitations, and certain poses I wanted just weren’t feasible.
I built the sculptures in parts but I didn’t want them to look pieced together. I wanted to avoid that “here’s where the head joins the neck” or “the torso is chopped in half” aesthetic. So I started thinking about the lidded jar form as a sculptural strategy: how could I interlock components in a way that felt intentional and seamless?
In thinking about masculinity in ceramics, I also didn’t want to make something large just for the sake of making something large. I think that’s the inner man’s voice in every ceramicist. But I don’t actually want to become a man in the process. I want to work my brain, not just the muscles in my body, if that makes sense. I purposely scaled the figures just a bit smaller than life-size which for me, adds to their surreal presence. Some people call that “cute,” also which is fine.
The pieces are built with coils, but in certain areas—especially clothing details—I used slabs. I approached some parts like a sewist. For the aprons, for example, I rolled out slabs and draped them over the bodice like a fitting. That part was really fun and felt like a way to bring femininity into the process.
In some cases, a hand dropped lower than the seam line, so I had to construct a second, temporary support structure just to fire it. It became an architectural puzzle— that part was also really fun.
In hindsight, it was kind of wild to build everything in grogless terra cotta, which made drying especially difficult. But I’d grown so accustomed to the clay—and had years of reclaim to work through—that I didn’t really question it until towards the end of the cycle. Maybe it was the masochism. But I think that’s part of ceramics too: the iron will to make your materials work and to exercise patience.
Cammi Climaco is a ceramicist and multidisciplinary artist based in Queens, New York, with a studio practice in Brooklyn. She earned her BFA in Crafts from Kent State University and an MFA in Ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Cammi has taught at institutions such as Pratt Institute, 92Y, BKLYN CLAY, and Greenwich House Pottery. In addition to her teaching and studio work, she co-hosted The Ceramics Podcast and now hosts The Ceramics Companion, where she talks about ceramics.
Michelle Im: Hello, Goodbye is on view at DIMIN, New York, between June 6 and July 11, 2025.
