Reading Through Traces begins from the difficulty of reading books in English as a non-native language, and from the experience of using traces on the page to support understanding. Rather than directly reproducing traces such as underlines, notes, and folds, the work translates the way these traces operate within reading into a process of taking apart, folding, unfolding, and reconfiguring the alphabet. Through this, the struggle of understanding English books is not explained directly, but appears as a visual structure in which letters are broken down and transformed into reading marks.
In this work, the alphabet becomes both the most basic unit of the English language and the starting point for experimentation. Each letter is made from masking tape, then cut, folded, and unfolded until it shifts into reading marks such as lines, arrows, brackets, and underlines. The alphabet no longer remains only as a fixed character, but begins to operate as a sign that guides and structures reading.
Here, traces are not simply visual marks, but results left by the process of reading, thinking, and understanding. Underlines, notes, and folds on a page may appear as secondary additions to a finished text, but they also record how a reader follows, pauses, emphasizes, connects, and returns to the text.
Masking tape is used as a material for bringing this idea into the work. Rather than being a material for making a finished object, tape is often used in the process of temporarily holding, positioning, adjusting, and testing. By keeping this material, which is usually hidden or removed once the work is finished, within the final work, the project shows how process does not have to disappear behind the outcome, but can become part of its structure.
In the graduation exhibition, the work is presented across two tables. One table shows the unfolded alphabets transformed into marking signs, while the other table presents research, tests, rules, sketches, and process materials. Together, they show that not only the final outcome, but also the process of reaching it, can become the structure and result of the work.
