Installation view of 《Tongue of Rain》 © Art Sonje Center

《Tongue of Rain》 is a gray zone exhibition that explores the power of poetic utterances, drawing inspiration from three feminist poets Cecilia Vicuña, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Kim Eon Hee. It employs the symbol of rain and tongue to illuminate the profound impact of poetic language, which pierces through the corridors of memory across generations. 

Upon entering the theater, Vicuña’s heartfelt elegy to Cha, Rain Dreamed by Sound: Homage to Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, echoes for about 20 minutes. The Korean-American writer and artist Cha was raped and murdered in New York shortly after publishing her novel DICTEE in 1982. Vicuña felt an unstoppable connection to Cha, akin to the relentless force of rain. In Vicuña’s elegy, rain symbolizes the force that reverberates the enduring nightmares of gender violence and revitalizes the souls of the afflicted.

Both Vicuña and Cha, immigrants from Chile and Korea to New York, embrace poetry and performance, forging connections with feminism, shamanism, and maternal traditions. The dialogue between Vicuña and Cha extends across generations, linking Na Mira, Jesse Chun, and Cha Yeonså, delving into the themes of mourning, the enduring spirit of poetry, and the transformative potential of language. 

Installation view of 《Tongue of Rain》 © Art Sonje Center

After Vicuña’s sound piece concludes, Mira’s video installation, TETRAPHOBIA, unfolds on the backstage of the theater space. Inspired by Cha’s unfinished film, White Dust from Mongolia, Mira’s work selectively incorporates elements envisioned by Cha for the film. The goal, however, is not to complete Cha’s unfinished work but to honor the potentiality of what was left unfulfilled. Cha’s incomplete work serves as a conduit for intergenerational communication.

Introduced in Korea for the first time through collaboration with Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, White Dust from Mongolia invites our imaginative contributions, as this film was never completed due to Cha’s sudden death. What we see are fragments of images that Cha captured in Korea in 1980. The intended story revolves around a woman who loses her memory and ability to speak, reflecting the experiences of Cha’s own grandmother and mother who escaped Japanese colonial rule to live in Manchuria. 

Installation view of 《Tongue of Rain》 © Art Sonje Center

Between Vicuña’s sound piece and Mira’s video work lies Chun’s installation Score for Unlanguaging (천지문 and cosmos; no.042723). This drawing installation fragments and abstracts the semantic system of the world’s most dominant language, English, transforming the Roman alphabets into Chun’s own abstraction. In the process of “unlanguaging”, Chun maps other cosmologies of language. The abstract scores will be activated through a collaborative performance that reinterprets Korean folk dance and sound.

Encountering the limitations of language leads to a new perception of the body. The poetic expression of “혀 달린 (literally translated as tongue-tied)”, borrowed from Kim Eon Hee , operates as a trigger to articulate the body/senses embedded in poetic language. The existential doubleness of tongue as a physical organ as well as the portal of language, challenges dichotomous perceptions of the body and language. 

Cha Yeonså’s Festival restores dead bodies without known connections from forensic records. Presented as a collage with bark paper, the artist transcribes the dead bodies using the techniques of paper cuttings. Utilizing bark paper from her deceased father’s mementos, the artist felt like engaging in a form of offering, akin to a memorial ritual. This ritualistic space permeates the exhibition, exploring the potential of art to play a healing role in the face of death and loss.

《Tongue of Rain》 proposes itself as a ritual space for restoring memory, through which the healing power of poetic utterances and the resistance of the tongue comes together. In this space for memory, the bodies/senses of marginalized voices are revitalized much like the unstoppable force of rain. The power of memory manifests vividly through the dialogues woven by Cecilia Vicuña, Cha Hakyung, Na Mira, Jesse Chun, and Cha Yeonså.

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