Offering, film still

OFFERING, 2023

4K. Single channel video. 12 min. Color. Stereo sound.

For Offering, Jane Jin Kaisen collaborated with a group of free divers in Jeju who have been involved in the environmental preservation of the ocean and the island. With them, she crafted an underwater choreography that draws upon Jeju’s shamanic myths connected to the ocean and the symbolic meanings of sochang. Sochang is a long white piece of cotton cloth associated with weaving and caring for kin. A symbol of the human cycle of life and death, sochang is integral to rites of passage in Korea. Filmed in slow motion and gradually tinged with red, the film approaches the ocean as a medium and a vessel of knowledge and matrilineal connection, but also as a space of exile and death.

Offering, video excerpt

Directed and edited by Jane Jin Kaisen. Directors of photography: Jane Jin Kaisen, Guston Sondin-Kung. Performers: Yoha, Susan Chu, Mooming, Neulbomal. Assistant director and coordinator: Grace Sungeun Kim. Dive masters: Den, Zoe. Research assistance: Soyoung Kwon. Composer and sound mix: Udo Lee. Colorist: Guston Sondin-Kung. Costume design: Nanda. With special thanks: Ahn Hyekyoung, Stina Hasse Jørgensen, Kim Seongnae, Pujita Guha. With support from: The Danish Artistic Research Funding Programme, Ministry of Culture and The Danish Arts Foundation