Portrait Film: Jane Jin Kaisen - Ny Carlsbergfondets Kunstnerlegat 2023
This film with Jane Jin Kaisen was produced for The New Carlsberg Foundation's Art Awards 2023 , which honors individuals who make a special contribution to the service of art and to the Danish art and museum landscape. The basic condition for this production is that it is produced in one day.
The New Carlsberg Foundation on the award of the Artist Grant to Jane Jin Kaisen: "Instead of enclosing your video installations in a purely fictional domain at a safe distance from the reality out there, you have made them both politically and poetically open to the often painful realities of globalization. With an X-ray vision spurred by your mixed Danish-Korean background, you interweave threads such as transnational adoption, global capitalism, colonialism, female oppression, shamanism, and the deeper rhythms of nature in a provocative way. In your work, perception is allied with concept, dream with documentation, myth with archive, and memory with politics."
Produced by JJ Film / Cast: Jane Jin Kaisen / Producer: Sophie Kampmann / Director: Mads Jørgensen / Editor: Henrik Lundø / Duration: 03:53 min / Landuage: Danish with English subtitles
Koh Sunahn - Each Sorrow, 2023. Music single
Shaman Koh Sunahn of Jeju Island passed away in 2019 shortly after the completion of Community of Parting. Her knowledge and transmission of Jeju Shamanism was profound. As a bereaved family member Koh Sunahn devoted herself to the memory of the Jeju April Third Massacre. In loving memory of shaman Koh Sunahn and her legacy, the music single “Koh Sunahn - Each Sorrow” is released. It features two chants from Community of Parting deriving from a shamanic ritual performed at my request in 2018.
Listen here
Ritual chant by Koh Sunahn / Produced by: E2/EnT-T (Lior Suliman and Tal Weiss) / Sound Engineer: Yoram Vazan / Cover design: Yao Xu / Cover Image: Jane Jin Kaisen (Each Sorrow, 2020) / With Special Thanks: Koh Sunahn and her family, Lior Suliman, Kim Seongnae, Guston Sondin-Kung, Daniel Zox, Udo Lee
Halmang, 2023 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), EP, Lior Suliman
Halmang revolves around a group of eight women in their 70s and 80s and is filmed by the coast of Jeju Island near a lava rock islet that used to serve as a shrine for the wind goddess Yongdeung Halmang. The women have worked and made a living together for most of their lives as haenyeo sea divers and used to depart for the sea from this very location. It was also from this area that Kaisen’s grandmother during her lifetime worked as a haenyeo. The title Halmang refers to this spiritual and gendered aspect as shamanic goddesses in Jeju are referred to as ‘halmang’, while it is also the Jeju term for ‘grandmother’ and a respectful way of addressing women.
The film portrays the aging women’s lived experiences, their community and spirituality connected to the sea, the wind, and the island. Central to the work is its focus on the collective use and care for sochang; a white, long cotton cloth associated with female labor and a symbol of the cycle of life and death and humans’ connection to the spirit world. The camera carefully registers their hands, gestures, and facial expressions as they meticulously tend to the fabric. As the piece unfolds, they start connecting the long rolls of sochang until it comes to form a large spiral enveloping the black lava rocks.
The music is produced by Lior Suliman (also known as Dub Mentor) and is composed of layers of on-site recordings, looped, interleaved, and treated to create an immersive sound experience. It features The Song of the Haenyeo by Gang Gyung Ja and the Song of Haenyeo Preservation Association.
Available for streaming here
Jane Jin Kaisen, Of Specters or Returns, 2023
Une extension radiophonique de l'oeuvre de Jane Jin Kaisen, sur une proposition de Yann Chateigné Tytelman, en collaboration avec la Maison du Danemark. Cette pièce radiophonique mêlant lectures, archives et créations prolonge l'exposition de l'artiste coréenne-danoise Jane Jin Kaison qui a eu lieu à la Maison du Danemark. Of specters or returns offre une navigation dans les histoires invisibles, les traumas transgénérationnels, les politiques de traduction interculturelle et les formes de guérison que l'art autorise, tels qu'il étaient mis en scène dans l'espace du Bicolore, mais par d'autres moyens, ceux du son et de l'écoute.
Réalisation: Jane Jin Kaisen, Yann Chateigné Tytelman, Eric Desjeux / Production: Rebecca Helewa Graversen / Montage: Eric Desjeux / Textes: Kate Fleron, Jane Jin Kaisen / Musique: bela / Extraits sonores: Jane Jin Kaisen / Avec les voix de: Julia Perrazzini, Isa Jelena Holm, Yemo Park / Traductions: Eugénie Hugo / Jungweon Mok / Technique: Rémi Berger Spirou, Eric Desjeux / Production: Le Bicolore à la Maison du Danemark, Paris