PORTAL, 2024

Single channel film. 4K. Color. Stereo sound. Duration: 12 min.


Portal registers the vivacity of being and creation from a space of wholeness. It is informed by the shamanic progenitor myth of Jeju about the giant goddess Seolmundae Halmang who is both the creator of the world and is the world and the elements that propel all life. In Portal, the island and the sea become continuously morphing interconnected entities. Filmed in the inter-tidal zone, crevices in the dense blue-black rugged lava rock formations become portals into the interior of sea shells and sea creatures become micro universes, moving, pounding, and breathing with life. Scalar orientation is suspended with the continuous rhythmic flow of images that resonate as visual poetry. Distinctions dissolve between self and other, inside and outside. Shapes and textures not ordinarily visible to the human eye reveal themselves and carry associations of bodily and cosmic matter. At the threshold of language and sensemaking, Portal invokes a space of potency and poetry, of vitality and creation.


Directed and edited by Jane Jin Kaisen. Directors of Photography: Jane Jin Kaisen, Guston Sondin-Kung. Music: Lior Suliman. Trumpet: Tal Weiss. Colorist: Edoardo Rebecchi. Sound engineer: Yoram Vazan. Assistance: Udo Lee, Mathieu Johan Hans Hansen. Supported by: The Danish Artistic Research Funding Programme, Ministry of Culture and Korea Artist Prize, Prize from National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea and SBS Foundation