Day 1: Transkoreaning: the reclamation, reparation, and remediation of cultural identity loss
22.11.2021, 17 - 19 h
Hörsaal 158, Hardenbergstr. 33
English, Moderator - Pegah Keshmirshekan and Umut Azad Akkel

In this presentation, RHEE will discuss the evolution of her politically engaged work as an artist and her dogged pursuit of cultivating creativity and playful improvisation in her artistic practice. She’ll briefly touch on past work and influences to frame the context of her past interdisciplinary project, called Transkoreaning, an interactive performance art and social intervention that used the South Korean language and South Korean culture as mediums to critically explore so-called authentic Korean identity and the construction of self through the lens of the Korean diaspora, drawing on feminist, gender, queer theory and German philosophy. Through a period of three months the artist endeavoured to become an authentic Korean person by “transitioning,” in other words, going through a process of changing her cultural presentation to accord with her outside sense of her ethnicity – the idea of what it means to be an ethnic and cultural Korean woman. Further, gender and race perceptions intersected to form a conventional image of an Asian/Korean woman, which she examined diligently from a transnational feminist approach.

Guest:
Transnational feminist kate-hers RHEE (이미래/李未來) is an interdisciplinary visual, performance and social practice artist, who works between Germany, South Korea and the United States. She was in residence at Express Newark in 2020 and is currently preparing for a solo exhibition Books and Things: The Studiolo of kate-hers RHEE at the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University.