"Textile as a map-mt.k #2" (2023), "Textile as a map-t.i #2" (2023), and "Textile as a map-j.i #2" (2023) are the newest additions to the artist’s "Nautical Map" series, a return to the first chapter of Oh’s ongoing "grand-mother island project" (2017-Present), which traces the memories of migrants across the Pacific. The woven works in "Nautical Map" harness the familiar motif of landscape to conceptualize intimate connections between faraway lands. For these three works, Oh moves beyond the confines of the nation-state by placing locations she holds near into conversation with each other. Mount Keira ("Textile as a map-mt.k #2"), an island near Oh’s current home in Wollongong Australia is linked to Oh’s ancestral homeland of Jeju Island, South Korea ("Textile as a map-j.i #2"); which are both then linked to Thursday Island ("Textile as a map-t.i #2"), a small island between Australia and Papua New Guinea where many Japanese immigrants labored in the pearling industry. A new form of cartography is created, not by charts and geographies, but instead by memory and shared experiences of diasporic existences connected by oceans.

For these works, Oh employed her own backstrap weaving method inspired by traditional Guatemalan backstrap weaving techniques that she learned from a teacher she met during her studies at Kyoto City University of the Arts. Oh painted and dyed the woven linen threads using black sumi ink and bleach, a process which left layers of color similar to a landscape emerging from the mist. In her weaving process, Oh considers the interlacing of the threads (warp and weft) to be analogous to the fabric of space and time, so that each layer of woven thread represents the past in the present: “The fabric is flat, but once unraveled, a three-dimensional space inflated with air emerges. Exploring this space suggests what exists, what existed, and what can exist between threads.”
In the repetitive process of backstrap weaving, the artist must use her own body to control the tension of the warp threads. This method is highly portable, and as such is a traditional craft that resonates within migrant communities. The medium itself also blurs national boundaries—weaving is an ancient technique that has been developed by transnational movement around the world, including between Japan, Korea, and Australia.

Previous versions of "Nautical Maps" have taken the form of temporary installations, but the artist intentionally framed these three new works to make them portable, bringing these three meaningful locations around the world.