Developed during a residency at El Hacedor in Spain, Encounter emerges from a research inquiry into how ghosts and monsters are formed—how their shapes, behaviors, and meanings shift depending on how humans understand and relate to nature. Rather than treating these beings as purely fictional, the work approaches them as social and ecological figures: embodiments of collective desire, fear, and lived relationships with specific landscapes.

The installation brings into relation two such figures: a unicorn carved into the stone façade of the Iglesia de San Andrés in Burgos, Spain, and a mushin, a shamanic deity from Jeju Island, Korea. Though separated by geography and cosmology, both are shaped by their environments. The unicorn’s horn, unusually carved beneath its jaw and oriented toward the land, reflects the centrality of land in local life, while the mushin, bearing features of waves, shells, and marine creatures, emerges from an intimate relationship with the sea.

By placing these figures in encounter, the work asks how landscapes are not only inhabited, but internalized—how land and sea shape the beings people imagine, and in turn, how those imagined beings structure human relationships with the environment.

At the same time, Encounter functions as a participatory installation. Visitors are invited to write their “wishes,” creating a space where personal and collective concerns—particularly those insufficiently addressed within the community—can surface. This gesture frames the installation as a site of inquiry: what matters, what is at stake, and what remains unspoken, especially in relation to life and death.

This process later developed into Ghost Body Workshop 2 (El Hacedor, 2025), where these questions were extended through collective making and reflection. In this sense, Encounter operates as both an installation and a preparatory ground—opening a space for shared imagination, and for the emergence of other forms of knowledge rooted in relation, care, and survival.