시, LANGUAGE FOR NEW MOONS
installation view, from left: 시: concrete poem, graphite, hand cut Hanji (Korean mulberry paper), wood frame, 158.75 × 91.44 × 6.35 cm each, 2023
O dust, 3 channel video installation, 3 mirrors. 7 min 6 sec video, with sound, dimensions variable, 2023
installation view, 시: concrete poem, graphite, hand cut Hanji (Korean mulberry paper), wood frame, 158.75 × 91.44 × 6.35 cm each, 2023
시: sea, single-channel projection on a free standing white painted MDF structure, 2 mirrors, rocks. 2 min 10 sec (video), dimensions variable, 2022
시: concrete poem (no.072323; no.072523, no.080123), graphite, hand cut Hanji (Korean mulberry paper), wood frame, 158.75 × 91.44 × 6.35 cm each, 2023
시: concrete poem, close-up, graphite, hand cut Hanji, 2023
O dust, 3 channel video installation, 3 mirrors. 7 min 6 sec video, with sound, dimensions variable, 2023
from left: notes on new moons (a reader); new moons are often invisible to the naked eye; notes by my grandmother Lee Oak Sun 이옥선 / buddhist name Jeong Gak Haeng 정각행; other notes on history; my offerings – on speaking together, vintage music stands, letters, diary pages, photos, dried lavendar, book pages, acrylics, hanbok silk
score for unlanguaging, graphite, pigment, vellum paper, pins, frame, 33.02 × 26.67 cm each, 2021-2023
score for unlanguaging, 2023, close-up
score for unlanguaging, graphite, pigment, vellum paper, pins, frame, 33.02 × 26.67 cm each, 2021-2023
notes on new moons (a reader); new moons are often invisible to the naked eye; notes by my grandmother Lee Oak Sun 이옥선 / buddhist name Jeong Gak Haeng 정각행;
other notes on history; my offerings – on speaking together
2023
dimensions variable, handwritten diary, letter pages, photographs, acrylic panels, clips, dried lavender, hanbok silk, rocks, vintage music stands, dimensions variable, 2023
from left: score for unlanguaging (천지문 and cosmos); And verse (혼잣말의 언어 그리고 cosmos) II; 술래 SULLAE, single-channel video, with sound, 6 min 25 sec, 2023
술래 SULLAE, single-channel video, with sound, 6 min 25 sec, 2023
score for unlanguaging (천지문 and cosmos), graphite, vellum paper, pigment, pins, 2 artist frames, 2023
And verse (혼잣말의 언어 그리고 cosmos) II, 2022, single-channel video installation, 4 UV printed acrylic panels, rocks, silence.
1 min 59 sec (video), dimensions variable
시, language for new moons, video documentation, 2023
Jesse Chun: 시, language for new moons
presented by the Seoul Museum of Art for the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, at the Seoul Museum of History; curated by Rachael Rakes, Artistic Director; Sofia Dourron, Associate Curator; with support from the SMB12 biennale team, Sept 21 - Nov 19, 2023
시, language for new moons is a survey exhibition of Jesse Chun, whose immersive poetics in moving image, drawing, installation, and sculpture invoke delicate questions about language and power. Chun was born in Korea and subsequently lived in Korea, Hong Kong, Canada, and the United States, where she observed the marginalization of non-English languages, particularly non-Western narratives and histories. Drawing from sustained connections to her own matrilineal history, Korean folk literature, and the country of her birth, Chun uncovers the “other sides” of language, mapping its various cosmologies. By deconstructing languages into fragments of phonemes, characters, images, and constellations, Chun embraces linguistic abstractions that fracture its social and semiotic structures. In presenting these works at Seoul Museum of History, she extends to visitors an inimitable opportunity to summon new languages, hybrid memories of culture, time, meaning and the experience of beginning anew—from her grandmother’s shamanic dance to the act of translating cross-territorial becomings. In the context of the museum, Chun’s works unfold new ways of seeing the histories and poetics that percolate through Seoul, arising from preservation, complexity, devotion, and reinvention.
- text from THIS TOO, IS A MAP, the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale
photos by GLIMWORKERS; courtesy of the Seoul Museum of Art
Artreview, The 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale Review: Save the World
Mousse Magazine, The 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale, THIS TOO, IS A MAP
Eazel, Beyond borders: 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale imagines new modes for navigating digital futures
DAZED KOREA, Jesse Chun: Secret Language