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/Jane Jin Kaisen

Burial of this Order commences with images of a funeral. A procession of non-conforming people – from musicians, artists and poets to anti-military activists, environmentalists and diasporic, queer and trans people come together to undo a world order built upon hierarchy and division by performing a burial. Together, they carry a coffin through the ruins of what turns out to be an abandoned resort on Jeju Island in South Korea. It soon becomes clear that this is no traditional funeral. Age and gender roles are subverted, the coffin is draped in dark camouflage colours and the traditional portrait of the deceased is replaced by a black mirror.

 

In the field between funeral ritual, political protest and carnival performance, the people in the procession march through the ruins of capitalist modernity. Time and place begin to lose their stability as mythical Dokkaebi deities pass through the building and heavy rain and wind blow through its cavities. As if possessed the group, in a moment of revolutionary fervour, overthrows and dismantles the scaffolding of the prevailing order and other stories begin to take form.

 

On either side of this work, the viewer encounters the films Sorrow Waters This Land and Dokkaebi. Both were filmed in the same location as Burial of This Order, a concrete building that was once one of the largest resorts in Jeju Island. Sorrow Waters This Land unfolds during the typhoon season. The camera slowly pans through the labyrinth concrete structure that is now covered in layers of rubbish, filth, and mold. Suddenly, torrential rain drenches the hollowed building. Devoid of humans, the cataclysmic atmosphere is highlighted by the reddish tone of the film. As the rain and fog recede, birds are heard and plants and vegetation emerge from the flooded ground. Will something survive our devastation?

In contrast to this Dokkaebi shows how the ruinous building is now adorned by vibrant vines, moss, and plants. Dokkaebi deities enter the space and move about to the hollow sound of the building, only to dissipate as abruptly as they emerge. Then arrives the rain.

 

 

Jane Jin Kaisen, Burial of this Order, 2022
single-channel film, 4K, colour, stereo sound, 24:30 min.
Courtesy of the artist

 

Jane Jin Kaisen, Sorrow Waters This Land, 2024
single-channel film. 4K, colour, stereo sound, 11:11 min.
Courtesy of the artist 

 

Jane Jin Kaisen, Dokkaebi, 2024
Single-channel film, 4K, colour, sound, 3:45 min.
Courtesy of the artist
 

 

Jane Jin Kaisen (b. 1980 in Jeju Island, KR) lives in Copenhagen, where she is professor of the School of Media Arts, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Kaisen is known for her visually striking, multilayered, performative, poetic, and multi-voiced works through which she engages themes of memory, migration, and borders at the intersection of lived experience and larger political histories. Another focus in her work revolves around nature and island spaces, cosmologies, feminist re-framings of myths, and engagement with ritual and spiritual practices.

 

She was awarded the Beckett Prize (2023), the New Carlsberg Foundation Artist Grant (2023), and a 3-year work grant from the Danish Arts Foundation (2022). In 2019 she represented Korea at the 58th Venice Biennale with the film installation Community of Parting. Recently, she had solo exhibitions at esea contemporary, Manchester, UK (2024); Jeju April Third Peace Park, Jeju, KR (2023); The Image Centre, Toronto, CA (2023); Le Bicolore, Paris, FR (2023); Fotografisk Center, Copenhagen, DK (2023); Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2021); Art Sonje Center, Seoul, KR (2021); and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, DK (2020).
 

 

 



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