{"id":3123,"date":"2023-01-24T13:27:03","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T12:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hypersensitive.dk\/?page_id=3123"},"modified":"2023-01-24T13:48:46","modified_gmt":"2023-01-24T12:48:46","slug":"art-praxis-of-yong-sun-gullach","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.hypersensitive.dk\/?page_id=3123","title":{"rendered":"Art practise of Yong Sun Gullach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

December 2021<\/em>
Mikkel Bruun Zangenberg, Ph.D., Literary and cultural critic<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ever-evolving cross-disciplinary artistic and activist practice of Korean-Danish performance artist Yong Sun Gullach (b. 1967) is founded upon – and takes its cue from \u2013 the acknowledgment of a profound, intersectional entanglement of issues to do with race, identity, politics, adoption, (symbolic) violence and trauma. The vessel is most often a subtle co-articulation of bodily practices (performance and installation) and verbal matters, specifically prose poems or highly reflective essayistic texts crafted by YSG herself. This complex practice, or set of practices, is set off by an identity-quest that balances between the personal and the political; or rather, the renewed subscription to that famous 70\u2019is dictum: the personal is political, and vice versa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A major part of the backdrop for this is the corporeal experience of having been brought from South Korea to Denmark as a transnational adoptee in 1970; having grown up in the rural backwaters of Denmark, very much a territory of absolute majority whiteness; later having studied Comparative Literature and Media Studies, at the University of Copenhagen, and New School of Social Research in New York. And thus constantly having had to navigate in a no-man\u2019s land of not quite being (considered) properly Danish, nor being fully South Korean, but constantly oscillating back and forth between assigned and ownmost social, racial, gendered and cultural identities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender is destiny, de Beavoir famously stated. One might add, so is race. But there is nothing predetermined about how we decide to manage the hands dealt to us by destiny. On her website, aptly named \u201cHypersensitivity\u201d (the medical term for allergic reactions in the immune system), individual and collaborative projects spanning the period from 2013 till today demonstrate the remarkable prowess, tenacity, inventiveness and even wry humour of Yong Sun Gullach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In White Facing<\/em> <\/a>(2016) YSG literally paints her face a glaring white, and at one point put on a scintillatingly yellow wig, going on to mimic and make faces of whiteness \u2013 reproducing, returning and subverting all of the gazes of white people looking at the transnational adoptee. In Re-Enacting the Transnational Adoptee<\/em> <\/a>(2015) an intricate series of gestures weave together scraps of a lecture, hastily clothing YSG\u2019s body in fragments of her original adoption papers put on with adhesive tape, flagellation and the pouring onto the body of white powder. Hwa Rang<\/a><\/em> (2017) features fragmented paper casts of the artist\u2019s own body, accompanied by brief texts; and in the performance work Cocoon<\/em> <\/a>(2017) three bodies are wrapped in white clothing, almost like mummies, only to unwrap themselves, reacquire agency and return to an empowered nudity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This process of empowerment is reversed in the recent performance piece Liquid borders of confinement<\/em> <\/a>(2021). Here, YSG\u2019s body is intricately clothed in a combination of a silvery, golden and orange lifejacket and heat blankets for these made by thin cellophane, resembling a huge, burdened insect of some sort, and being made to move forward by placing its feet in grey plastic buckets filled with water; placing both feet in one of these, one of two buckets is put in front of the body, the water is poured into this, a step is taken into the bucket, and so on. All of this being a commentary on some of the ways in which the bodies of migrants are confined to an ad-hoc, fragile and constantly liquid, moveable zone; dictated by the efforts of the nation-state to avoid welcoming the foreign body onto its territory proper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Adopt A Chronotype<\/a><\/em> (2021) is a somewhat different genre altogether. Being a hybrid between a lecture, and a prose poem, this is a speech that was addressed to the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters, trenchantly critiquing a Kantian idea of truth and identity (A=A), as well as a Bakhtinian notion of the \u201cchronotope\u201d (subtly rewritten by YSG as \u201cchronotype\u201d), and instead sketching a blurry, insistent and complex figuration of the migrant; placed in the marginal interstices of truth, identity and belonging. Jeg opstiller en far<\/em> <\/a>(I put before me a father<\/em>. 2021) is a return to the performative register of YSG, exploring the mode of absence of the biological, Korean father, putting together a traditional Korean meal in a multitude of tiny bowls, sweeping the floor, etc., and simultaneously handing out strips of inscribed paper to the audience, with the accompanying text in Danish. More than Meets the Eye<\/em>,<\/a> consisted in doing a huge (1.7 x 12 metre) wall installation up on the Faroe Islands. The material was wallpaint, but inscribed by patterns amenable to decoding by the app \u201cphonopaper\u201d; thus allowing the audience to literally play sounds decoding the signs inscribed on wallpainting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all of these registers and genres, and then some, Yong-Sun Gullach\u2019s artistic practice powerfully explores two lines of inquiry: the travails of the transnational adoptee, and the vagaries of the migrant. This can be said to be organized along two compositional and strategic modalities; one to do with confinement, coercion, stigmatization, constraints; and another labouring with liquidity, contestation, liberation, protest. In each installation, each performance, each text, an oscillating, complex, sometimes conflicted relation between these two modalities are played out. Most often, the very body of Yong-Sun Gullach herself is used as canvas and medium for these protracted negotiations and painful explorations of the liminal spaces of the transnational adoptee and the refugee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is important to note, that all of this has been accompanied by a lengthy and robust activist effort by YSG, in the domain of adoption -and refugee lawmaking. Hence, the boundaries between aesthetics and politics are constantly crossed over and made to overlap in the work of YSG.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In so doing, the collective body of work by Yong-Sun Gullach makes an immensely valuable and aesthetically as well as politically challenging contribution to the genres of performance, installation and textuality, as well as policies of adoption and immigration. In a global world increasingly beset by the problem of being uprooted, disorganized, destabilised (in economic, ethnic and climate-political registers), the work of YSG only continues to grow in relevance, force and actuality. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dansk version<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yong Sun Gullachs aktivisme og kunstpraksis. December 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Den dansk-koreanske adoptionsaktivist og performancekunstner Yong Sun Gullachs (f. 1967) samlede \u00e6stetisk-politiske indsats kan siges at v\u00e6re funderet p\u00e5 en dyb og vedvarende insisteren p\u00e5 at race, identitet, k\u00f8n, krop, politik, adoption og symbolsk vold og traumer er intersektionelt forbundne st\u00f8rrelser. Denne insisteren kommer som oftest konkret til orde i kraft af en dobbelt-artikulation af kropslig praksis (performance og installationer) og tekstlige st\u00f8rrelser, de sidste som regel i form af prosadigte, regibem\u00e6rkninger eller uhyre reflekterede, essayistiske tekster. Denne kunstpraksis, eller hele dette s\u00e6t af praksisser, er motiveret af en unders\u00f8gelse af identitet, der balancerer p\u00e5 gr\u00e6nsen mellem det personlige og det politiske. Eller rettere, den er farvet af genoptagelsen af 1970\u2019ernes ber\u00f8mte diktum: det personlige er politisk, og vice versa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

En ikke uv\u00e6sentlig del af baggrunden bag alt dette, er den korporlige erfaring af som transnationalt adopteret at v\u00e6re blevet bragt fra Sydkorea til Danmark i 1970; af at v\u00e6re vokset op i en landlig del af Danmark, der roligt kan siges at have v\u00e6ret pr\u00e6get af en massivt majoritetshvid kultur; af senere at have studeret Litteraturvidenskab og Media Studies p\u00e5 henholdsvis K\u00f8benhavns Universitet og New School of Social Research i New York. Og ved alt dette konstant at have skullet l\u00e6re at navigere i et skr\u00f8beligt ingenmandsland mellem ikke at v\u00e6re blevet set p\u00e5 som fuldt og helt dansk, men ej heller omvendt at v\u00e6re koreansk slet og ret. Derved er der opst\u00e5et en unders\u00f8gelseszone pr\u00e6get af pendlen frem og tilbage mellem tilskrevne og ikke fuldt ud stabile, egne identiteter, i henseende til race og familie, men ogs\u00e5 sociokulturelt og k\u00f8nsligt. Identiteten har ikke v\u00e6ret et trygt afs\u00e6t, men i stedet det flimrende objekt for en stadig unders\u00f8gelse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

K\u00f8n er sk\u00e6bne, sagde Simone de Beavoir ber\u00f8mt. Man kunne tilf\u00f8je, det er race ogs\u00e5. Men der er intet sk\u00e6bnesvangert eller forud fastlagt ved de m\u00e5der, hvorp\u00e5 vi v\u00e6lger at h\u00e5ndtere vores tildelte sk\u00e6bne. P\u00e5 sit website \u201dHypersensivitet.dk\u201d (\u201dhypersensitivitet\u201d er den l\u00e6gelige betegnelse for immunforsvarets allergiske reaktioner), pr\u00e6senterer Yong Sun Gullach en lang r\u00e6kke individuelle og kollektive projekter fra perioden 2013 til i dag; de demonstrerer alle det bem\u00e6rkelsesv\u00e6rdige mod, og den store udholdenhed, opfindsomhed, skarphed og endog barokke humor, YSG l\u00e6gger for dagen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I White Facing<\/a> (2016) maler YSG bogstavelig talt sit ansigt kridhvidt, og if\u00f8rer sig p\u00e5 et tidspunkt en krast gul-blond paryk, idet hun mimer og g\u00f8r ansigter af hvidhed; dermed reproducerer og undergraver hun p\u00e5 samme tid alle de blikke, hvide mennesker kaster p\u00e5 de transnationalt adopterede. Hun tager desuden hvidheden p\u00e5 sig, men afst\u00f8der, forvr\u00e6nger og kaster den i samme gestus fra sig. I Re-Enacting the Transnational Adoptee<\/a> (2015) if\u00f8res den n\u00f8gne krop YSG\u2019s oprindelige adoptionspapirer; papirstykkerne h\u00e6ftes hektisk og hastigt fast med stumper af tape, under afsigelse af fragmenter af en forel\u00e6sning; kroppen uds\u00e6ttes for flagellation, og et hvidt pulver h\u00e6ldes over den. Hwa Rang<\/a> (2017) best\u00e5r af adskilte papirst\u00f8bninger af dele af kunstnerens egen krop, ledsaget af korte tekster, mens performancev\u00e6rket Cocoon <\/a>(2017) byder p\u00e5 tre n\u00f8gne kroppe som langsomt, og n\u00e6sten som mumier, af andre indhylles i hvide stofstrimler, kun for derefter selv at folde sig ud af dem, og derved generobre egen handlekraft og en art magtfuld n\u00f8genhed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denne proces, der g\u00e5r fra afmagt til erobringen af egenmagt, omvendes i det nylige performancev\u00e6rk Liquid Borders of Confinement<\/a> (2021). I dette v\u00e6rk er YSG\u2019s krop if\u00f8rt en enorm redningsvest og varmet\u00e6pper lavet af tynd cellofan og glitrende i s\u00f8lv, guld og orange; som et stort, bebyrdet insektlignende v\u00e6sen bev\u00e6ger hun sig fra en gr\u00e5 plastspand til en anden; fra hver spand h\u00e6ldes en lille m\u00e6ngde vand over i den anden, f\u00f8dderne og kroppen bev\u00e6ger sig over i den, og s\u00e5 fremdeles. Dette lader sig l\u00e6se som en kommentar til nogle af de m\u00e5der, hvorp\u00e5 migranters kroppe er afgr\u00e6nset og sp\u00e6rret inde i et skr\u00f8beligt, flydende og altid forskudt rum; dikteret af nationalstaternes \u00f8nske om at holde flygtningekroppene ude – i lejren, eller i internationalt farvand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Adopt a Chronotype<\/a> (2021) udg\u00f8r en bev\u00e6gelse hen imod en for s\u00e5 vidt traditionel genre: forel\u00e6sningen. Den foreligger som hybrid mellem et prosadigt og en forel\u00e6sning, og blev holdt for Det kongelige danske videnskabernes selskab. Teksten rummer en skarp kritik af et kantiansk sandheds -og identitetsbegreb (A=A), samt af den russiske litteraturteoretikers Bakhtins id\u00e9 om \u201dkronotopen\u201d (der her af YSG omskrives til \u201dkronotypen\u201d); over for disse hvide og europ\u00e6iske termer, stiller YSG en sl\u00f8ret, flimrende og komplex figur: migrantens. Migranten er ikke lokaliseret p\u00e5 et fikseret sted, et stabilt tidspunkt; migranten repr\u00e6senterer hverken selvidentitet eller legitimeret sandhed, men opholder sig derimod ved sandhedens, tilh\u00f8rsforholdets og identitetens marginer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeg opstiller en far (<\/a>2021) udg\u00f8r her over for en tilbagevenden til det performative. I denne performance udforskes det radikale frav\u00e6r af den koreanske fader; et traditionelt koreansk m\u00e5ltid best\u00e5ende af et utal af sm\u00e5 sk\u00e5le s\u00e6ttes frem p\u00e5 et gulv; der fejes, alt imens papirstrimler med dansk tekst udleveres til publikum, der dermed kan l\u00e6se med i v\u00e6rkets opf\u00f8relse. More than Meets the Eye <\/a>(2018) bestod i udf\u00f8relsen af et enormt v\u00e6gmaleri (1.7 x 12 meter) oppe p\u00e5 F\u00e6r\u00f8erne. V\u00e6ggen blev bemalet med intrikate tegn, og disse kunne derefter afl\u00e6ses via appen \u201dphonopaper\u201d, der konverterede dem til lydsignaler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I alle disse registre og genrer, og lidt flere endnu, kan Yong Sun Gullach kunstpraksis siges p\u00e5 kraftfuld vis at udforske to flugtlinjer: den transnationalt adopteredes pr\u00f8velser, og migrantens byrdefulde sk\u00e6bne. Dette sker i form af to kompositionelle og taktiske fremgangsm\u00e5der; den ene har at g\u00f8re med iv\u00e6rks\u00e6ttelsen af indesp\u00e6rring, tvang, stigmatisering og b\u00e5nd; den anden arbejder med frig\u00f8relse, protest, det flydende og det polemiske. I hver eneste installation, hver eneste performance, og hver eneste tekst, finder vi en kompleks, raffineret relation mellem disse to fremgangsm\u00e5der og iscenes\u00e6ttelser. Ganske ofte inds\u00e6ttes YSG\u2019s egen krop som rekvisit og medie (en titel p\u00e5 hendes website proklamerer: THE BODY IS POLITICAL), for disse langvarige forhandlinger og smertefulde unders\u00f8gelser af den transnationalt adopterede og migrantens s\u00e6rlige (ikke)rum eller gr\u00e6nsezoner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Det er vigtigt at medtage, at hele denne kunstpraktiske side af Yong Sun Gullachs virke til stadighed har v\u00e6ret ledsaget af en r\u00e6kke aktivistiske bestr\u00e6belser og forehavender indenfor de felter, der har at g\u00f8re med adoptionslovgivning og flygtningeret. Dette er ikke en behjertet Nebengesch\u00e4ft, men derimod en afg\u00f8rende vigtig og integreret del af den udfoldede kunstpraksis: det \u00e6stetiske er politisk, og vice versa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I og med udforskningen af dette fulde kraftfelt, udg\u00f8r YSG\u2019s samlede v\u00e6rk og aktivisme et um\u00e5deligt v\u00e6rdifuldt \u00e6stetisk s\u00e5vel som politisk v\u00e6gtigt bidrag til performance \u2013 og installationskunsten, samt til udformningen af fremtidige politiske fremgangsm\u00e5der indenfor adoptions-og migrantlovgivningen. V\u00e6rket er tillige et b\u00e5de smukt og ber\u00f8rende vidnesbyrd om den transnationalt adopteredes kropslige erfaring af at befinde sig i et kulturelt, politisk, socialt og \u00e6stetisk mellemrum. I en global verden, der i stigende grad er hjems\u00f8gt af erfaringer af hjeml\u00f8shed, ustabilitet og desorientering (i b\u00e5de \u00f8konomisk, etnisk og klimapolitisk henseende), vil Yong Sun Gullachs v\u00e6rker kun forts\u00e6tte med at vokse i relevans, aktualitet og kraft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 2021Mikkel Bruun Zangenberg, Ph.D., Literary and cultural critic The ever-evolving cross-disciplinary artistic and activist practice of Korean-Danish performance artist Yong Sun Gullach (b. 1967) is founded upon – and takes its cue from \u2013 the acknowledgment of a profound,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3123","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersensitive.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersensitive.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersensitive.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersensitive.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersensitive.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3123"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersensitive.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3129,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersensitive.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3123\/revisions\/3129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersensitive.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}