The Central Saint Martins alum discusses her creative process and collaborating with Veuve Clicquot
La Grande Dame by Veuve ClicquotShini Park is the mastermind behind digital atelier CUBE and “digital playground and annual fashion and visual arts book series” CUBICLE, which launched in 2018. In recent years, the Central Saint Martins graduate has cemented a career as a multifaceted creative director, photographer and brand ambassador. In her latest project, Park, who was born in Seoul but is currently based between London and Warsaw, has teamed up with luxury champagne brand Veuve Clicquot for a campaign celebrating positivity and optimism through an artistic lens.
Her working relationship with the brand began in late 2020, just before the project, titled ‘Blooming Intentions’, was initially launched in January 2021. The campaign pays homage to “la grande dame” of Champagne, Madame Clicquot, in the form of a gift box and flower sculpture designed for La Grande Dame cuvée by iconic Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama – who also wrote a poem for this collaboration, symbolising vital energy, love and optimism. The project as whole carries a strong message that resonates with both the personal and creative values of Park. “I’m very happy to be wrapping up a fruitful year and starting 2022 by creating with Veuve Clicquot again,” she tells AnOther. “There’s so much bubbling energy (pardon the pun), optimism and curiosity about the brand. In the years of following the Veuve Clicquot journey, I’ve always either learned something new, or was inspired to celebrate life, whether big or small.”
This concept of celebration and the idea of blossoming into your potential is what drew Park to the project, even more so following the pandemic and its repercussions on society. “As a Londoner, I love the wordplay on ’blooming’, it’s both a humorous expletive and a metaphorically inspirational word at the same time,” she explains. “To announce ‘My blooming intention … ’ is almost a perfect tone amidst this global condition, as if I’m really willing for the wish to blossom and unfold – it’s spectacularly appropriate.”
Park is one of six creative talents from around the world who have been handpicked by Veuve Clicquot to express their intentions for the year ahead in the campaign’s accompanying ‘Inspiration in Bloom’ series. She’s joined by an exciting roster of talents including the likes of Seattle-born Cirque du Soleil alum Mike Tyus, Japanese singer, model and actor, Kom I and Argentinian model, influencer and street style star Candela Pelizza, to name a few. “I’ve always been a fan of Mike Tyus and his expression of energy – his interpretation of his own blooming wish was as edgy and explosive as I’d hoped it to be,” she says of the dancer and choreographer, who has previously collaborated with global stars like FKA twigs and Sia. Above all, Park was excited about the prospect of working on this collaboration between Veuve Clicquot and Yayoi Kusama, who she describes as “the godmother of contemporary art.”
“[Kusama] is a wildly important visual master, akin to Damien Hirst or Georgia O’Keeffe. Experiencing her work through exhibitions and shows routinely inspires me to work on curiosity, tenacity and scale [of expression] when it comes to my own creative journey,” she says. “Reading, seeing, listening and feeling always puts me in a mood to create something.” Whenever she finds herself in a creative rut, she takes a ride, be it on a train or by car, for a fresh dose of inspiration.
Park launched CUBE back in 2008 to provide an efficient vehicle of support for her creative ventures, one of which is the aforementioned storytelling platform, CUBICLE. “Our stories are primarily based on masters of visual arts, art history and their muses, spanning all visual industries such as fine arts, photography, cinema, architecture,” she explains. “CUBICLE focuses on finding contemporary parallels to art history, with a tinge of tongue-in-cheek humour.”
One of the biggest lessons she learnt during her time at Saint Martins was that the arts industry is a people’s industry. “Find your friends and take care of them, and they will look after you,” she says. This ethos is one of many Park has carried with her throughout her career. Her biggest goal for the future is to create reletlessly. “[I want] to ’gaze at the extremes of life’, she says, quoting Kusama’s poem for Veuve Clicquot.
La Grande Dame x Yayoi Kusama by Veuve Clicquot is available now, head here to find out more.
