In Conversation: Stop-Motion Artist Pomkozi
by Uma Snow
Dawon Kim, known online as Pomkozi, is a South Korean stop-motion artist. Born in Seoul, Dawon spent her youth moving between South Korea, the United States, and Hong Kong. She eventually completed her academic journey in 2020 at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2022, I spoke to Dawon about her background, process, influences, and dreams for the future.
You started out as an illustration major. Have you always enjoyed animation? How did you get into stop motion?
I actually had no interest at all in working on animation, and was set on studying illustration from the moment I applied to my art college, RISD. I loved watching animations, but never really saw myself working in that field until trying it out for the first time in the last semester of my freshman year.
For a bit of background—we don't go into our chosen majors until sophomore year. The freshman year is also called “foundations year,” where everyone takes the same three studio classes that revolve around drawing, design, and three-dimensional art. The first stop-motion animation I made was for the 3D studio class, for one of our final projects, where we could choose whatever 3D medium to work in. Several of my classmates had done stop-motion work before that looked cool, and I wanted to try something completely new, so I decided to try it out myself.
It was a two-week project, but I had a week-long spring break in between, so I worked on that project every day for nearly three weeks straight. I made puppets and clay characters from scratch, collected tree bark for the little houses, stole dirt from the school courtyard, dyed and chopped dozens of popsicle sticks, and bought a few gallons of hair dye to make animatable water. When I presented the final film to my class, I received praise unlike ever before. Afterwards, my professor came up to me and told me that I was meant to do animation, that I had an immense innate talent for stop-motion. I was so torn between studying illustration, which I had been set on doing for years, and going into animation, which I barely knew anything about. I struggled and even cried over the decision for weeks, but my heart eventually chose animation. And it was the best decision I'd ever made.
What was it like making your first puppet?
It was messy and confusing, but the challenge of trying something new made it enjoyable. My first puppet was a chunky plague-doctor-looking guy, made with fabric scraps, wire, and a wine cork. As I made it on my own without any guidance, I fumbled a lot. For example, I used steel wire (which springs back when bent) for the skeleton instead of aluminum wire (which bends smoothly and stays in place). It made animating a hassle!
You were accepted to an internship with LAIKA. Even though you weren’t able to do it, what did it mean to be accepted at such a prestigious stop motion studio? What was your journey like building up that demo reel? (Note: LAIKA Studios is best known for their stop-motion film Coraline.)
Getting accepted to LAIKA had been my top goal ever since I formally got into stop-motion. Having such an immense goal like that pushed me really hard. I shaped my style around LAIKA's, and daydreamed about working there nearly daily. My dream was akin to a fixation. I really couldn't believe it when I was told over Zoom that I was accepted, that a room full of some of the best stop-motion animators in the world unanimously said they wanted me to work with them. Although the pandemic took that opportunity away from me, getting accepted erased any doubts I had towards my work, and freed me from my desire for validation, which had been so constant through my student years.
What advice would you have for people who want to get into stop motion?
Don't be too daunted or intimidated by the process! Though the typical equipment and setups, which stop-motion animators use, look kind of crazy, you can make something really cool with a simple setup, such as a stop-motion app on a phone and a chunk of clay. Start out with basic animation exercises, such as animating a bouncing ball, and move onto harder ones as you get the hang of it. Like with any art form, having fun and putting the focus on the learning process instead of the results is the best way to go.
Most of the work you post online is related to BTS—how have they influenced your art and your relationship with it?
BTS is my other passion besides stop-motion, so it was only natural I'd combine the two. I am inspired by their diverse personalities and relationships with each other. There's so many interactions between them that bring me joy, which I find incredibly fun to recreate in stop-motion format. They've also brought me so much happiness with their music and content, which improved my mental well-being by putting me in a headspace that better facilitates creativity and motivation. Not only that, I was able to become part of a community that is so full of artists and support for artists thanks to them. ARMYs all over the world have been so receptive of my work, and tell me constantly how much joy my animations bring them. Thanks to them, what I do feels so much more meaningful, and my affection and gratefulness towards my own skills have increased. My self-love has truly grown!
As an artist, I'm especially inspired by j-hope, who I consider to be one of my biggest role models when it comes to creating art. I admire how he's so dedicated to perfecting his craft, how he's incredibly detail-oriented, and how he's constantly pushing himself to explore and experiment outside of his comfort zone, refusing to box himself in. He's the exact kind of artist I want to be. The main reason I chose to do stop motion was because it is a road not often traveled and I wanted to create things that are completely new, but I'm still held back a bit by fear of the unknown at times. j-hope really encourages me to be bolder with my art.
ARMY has a huge presence online. What has it been like to have your work reach so many people?
It's such a huge contrast from when I was making and presenting art in art school. I would work on projects for weeks on end, intended for the eyes of a professor and a dozen classmates. The largest audience I've had view my work is a few hundred people at an end-of-year show. On Twitter, my videos get hundreds of thousands of views each. It still shocks and thrills me how easily and quickly my work can reach such a vast audience. Making art and sharing it online has been an exhilarating way to connect with people from all around the world. The BTS fandom is incredibly geographically diverse, and it's been so fun to receive love in so many different languages. It also excites me that I can share the rare, precious, and often overlooked art form of stop-motion animation with lots of people who are unfamiliar with it.
If you had the chance to direct/create a stop motion music video for any BTS song, which would it be?
My choices are V's “Sweet Night,” and j-hope's “Blue Side.” I already have a complete story in mind for “Sweet Night.” If only I had the time and funds, I would eagerly execute that!
My idea for “Blue Side” is much more hazy, complex, and abstract. From the moment I listened to that song, I felt that it was meant to have a stop-motion music video, that no other medium would be as perfect for it. The layers of instrumentals create such depth, like a landscape of woven textures. The song feels cold with notes of warmth. The wind chimes are a lovely touch that feel almost tangible. I would use glass and colored resin for the sets, and a felted puppet as the character. Since I have so much love for both the song and j-hope, I think I could make something really incredible. I'll do it for sure one day, eventually.
You mention having spent your early childhood in Indiana and Texas, while your older years were spent in Seoul and Hong Kong. How different were the animation styles on opposite sides of the world that you were exposed to? How much of an influence do you think these diverse animation approaches had on how you approach animation?
Well, I didn't have any interest in pursuing animation until college, and didn't really expose myself to animation styles outside of the mainstream until then, especially Asian ones. Now that I’m back in Korea after years of studying mostly Western art, I find myself being drawn to Asian art in a way I never have been before.
Growing up in the States had conditioned me to actively reject my racial identity for a significant portion of my life. In art school, classes revolved around Western art as the “ideal,” and so I put my faith into it. But while living here and visiting local galleries, I began to realize that while Western art has its foundations in the pursuit of representing reality accurately, Asian art aspires to recreate sentiments and share how the artist views and feels the world, beyond the physicality of the artwork.
I’ve struggled a lot with finding my artistic voice. I don’t think I’ve made anything that I’ve been completely satisfied with in my life because something always felt missing. I think I may have been too caught up in making my animations look “correct” that I’ve waylaid my true and innermost desire to manifest my psychological realm in tangible form. Perhaps the key to my unachieved perception of completeness will come once I learn to truly embrace what I once rejected. From now on, I’m going to study Asian art and its ideologies, and naturally accept their influences. So while my current work may not carry much influence from Asian art/animation approaches, my future work certainly will. :)
Do you think moving around so much had any impact on your interest in art?
I’m not sure if moving around a lot made me more interested in art, but it certainly drove me down that path. I went to three different high schools in three different curriculums (Korean, British, and American) and the stress of it decimated my grades. I was a high-performer (academically) as a child, with a major interest in the sciences, and it was my dream to be an ornithologist. However, my high school GPA was so atrocious that I had to consider going to art school instead. Thanks to my mild but lifelong interest in drawing, I was able to put together a decent portfolio in the summer before my senior year.
What is your eventual goal with animation? Do you want to work with any particular studios or people?
I still want to grab back my dream that the pandemic took from me, which is to work at LAIKA. I'm currently working towards getting a US work visa for that. I also want to work with stop motion studios in various different countries, so I can be exposed to many different animation techniques and styles. My only goals beyond that are to search for and develop my artistic voice, make things that are unlike anything that currently exists, and continue believing in the power of sincerity.
This interview has been edited for brevity & clarity.
Although Dawon does not currently upload her work online, you can see some of her older animations on her TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
