CURRENTS AND FAULTLINES 2022-present
Various media (video installation, text, photography, sound, etc.)
Currents and Faultlines is an ongoing multifaceted project based on Jane Jin Kaisen’s extensive artistic research concerning the intersection of cultural preservation, the agency of nature and ecology, and the transmission of intergenerational knowledge from the perspective of indigenous communities across islands in the Asia-Pacific and beyond. Filmed across volcanic island spaces including Jeju Island, Pongso no Tao, Amami Ōshima, Okinawa, etc. - spaces vastly shaped by the Kuroshio oceanic current and the Pacific Ring of Fire - Currents and Faultlines extends beyond fixed borders and geopolitical frameworks, employing the metaphor of the oceanic current as methodological lens. Doing so, Currents and Faultlines looks at how communities across these island spaces form counter-hegemonic ways of being in the world by embracing and practicing co-existence and being attuned to ecological sensibilities and embodied knowledges. Resisting hegemonic narratives and official state practices of conquest and expropriation, their very existence constitutes an act of resilience against cultural and ecological erasure.
Through an interdisciplinary approach encompassing film, performance, text, photography, sound, and site-specific research, Currents and Faultlines unfolds a dynamic network of dialogues between cultural practitioners, researchers, artists, poets, and filmmakers while the audiovisual works portray how human cultures are fundamentally shaped by forces of nature. By tracing and mapping different cultural and ecological entanglements across various island cultures, the project is invested in challenging dominant epistemologies and reimagining human relationships with the environment. Acknowledging the ongoing historical, cultural, and ecological significance of these communities, Currents and Faultlines is in dialogue with broader discourses on transnational and indigenous memory as well as post- and decolonial ecologies that contest enduring legacies of military and imperial expansion in the Asia-Pacific region and propose alternative modes of existence.
Main participants and contributors: Song Youngmee, Syaman Rapongan, the Taishi family and Akina Village Community. Additional participants: Suh Sunshil, Kitamura Minao. Research partners: Archive, Soyoung Kwon, Yoshiko Shimada, Anselm Franke, Hyunjin Kim. Research contributors: Alice Nien-Pu Ko, An Mijong, Heo Nam Chun, Panay Mulu. Creative contributors: Guston Sondin-Kung, Lior Suliman, Udo Lee. Research assistance: Man-Chun Chao, Miura Yoko, Pauline Koffi Vandet, Posak Jodian, Shih-Yu Hsu, Soichi Hayashi, M.Ishino, Soyoung Kwon, Sunyoung Hong, Zoe Yeh. Camera Assistance: Grace Sungeun Kim, Mathieu Johan Hans Hansen, Orlando Thompson. Translation/subtitling: Ahn Hyekyoung, Han Gil Jang, Sunyoung Hong, Man-Chun Chao, John Stephenson. Tao language consulting: Syaman Manalap. Special thanks: Chou Chun-Hui, Kim Seongnae, Rebecca Jennison, Cube Project Space, Rngrang Hungul, Si Pehbowen, Shih-Tung Lo, Shih-Wei (Sophie) Chen, Sinan Manaik, Stina Hasse Jørgensen, Syamen Walamen, Thalaelethe Titibu. Support: The Danish Artistic Research Funding Programme, Ministry of Culture. Additional Support: Incisions, Hong-gah Museum, OCAC (Open Contemporary Art Center), The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.