Developed over the past seven years, the BTM series has become an extensive body of work—including ceramics, mixed media installations, poetry, performance, drawings, and photograps—that reflects on the artist’s time serving in the Korean military from 2012 to 2014. Park moved from 청주시 Cheongju, South Korea, to Aotearoa in 2000 and was later required to complete two years of compulsory military service in order to retain his Korean citizenship. Known for being forcefully anti-LGBTQ+, the Korean military was a confronting place for him to exist. In 2018, he learned that the army had fabricated online dating profiles to entrap queer personnel. Those caught were subject to brutal interrogation and a non-expungeable charge, impacting their access to health and civic services. The BTM series emerged as a retaliation against the treatment of Park’s queer comrades by the armed forces and as a way for him to reclaim the identity he was forced to conceal while in service. The bulletproof helmet is the foundational component of BTM, giving the artist a charged surface to embellish. He adds facial features, provocative glazes, horns, and hair to humanise the protective shells. He seeks to create a full military company of imagined personalities—outrageous, flamboyant, and free to embody their queer identities. All photographs are by Samuel Hartnett and courtesy of Objectspace.