polina
United Kingdom
Where do you locate yourself in relation to the systems you work with?
Where are you heading, and what is pulling you there?
How would you describe the space your practice is currently unfolding in?
Description
Dinner captures one of the most tense, intimate, and haunting moments from Han Kang’s The Vegetarian. It’s a visualisation of the dinner scene, where desire, violence, and control collide at the table, and the body becomes a site of rebellion and discomfort. I wanted to translate the tension, the unease, the unspoken conflict, and the raw sensory intensity into a single image that lingers in the mind. It’s surreal and unsettling because that’s what the scene feels like when you experience it. Not just with your eyes, but with your whole body.
Process
The novel affected me deeply. This scene in particular left an imprint I couldn’t ignore. I had to externalise it, to feel it fully, and to make others feel it too. Dinner became my way of grappling with that intensity, turning emotion, tension, and bodily revolt into something tangible. It’s urgent, intimate, and uncontainable, like the story itself.
Tools
I start with sketches to explore form, gesture, and atmosphere. Then I moodboard and conceptualise details, refining the vision. MidJourney helps push the imagery into unexpected, visceral spaces, Photoshop helps me refine it, and I animate it with Higgsfield, Kling, and Veo3 to give movement and depth. Each tool serves to translate the inner tension of the scene into a visual language, giving presence to what words alone cannot hold.
