Tonight, there’s no place for me to put down my poem
The fdrg is thrilled to be collaborating with esea contemporary in Manchester for this afternoon meeting of out loud readings. Devised in response to Jane Jin Kaisen’s exhibition ‘Hamlang,’ this is the third fdrg event responding to the artist’s work, following our initial encounter with her film ‘The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger,’ in an event organised by Haley Ha in 2019.
‘Tonight, there’s no place for me to put down my poem’ explores enduring issues of migration as well as experiences of displacement and exile. We will collectively read from Maja Lee Langvad’s ‘She is angry,’ Kim Hyesoon’s ‘Phantom Pain Wings,’ and ‘Rise’ by Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner and Aka Niviâna. These readings will be framed by Jane Jin Kaisen’s works which, through engaging with discourse, power, and subjectivity, delineate a contested modernity.
Psychological and poetic, these texts provide powerful female enunciations of urgent social concerns including transnational adoption and climate justice. They give insights into how humour, imagination, connection can offer ways of hope and being. Through these three texts, we will reflect on the different social multiplicity of gender and migratory encounters which demand an increasingly complex understanding of the diasporic condition in the concurrent ecological, social, and political crises of our time.
Readings
Extracts from ‘She is angry: A testimony of transnational adoption’ (‘Hun er vred: Et vidnesbyrd om transnational adoption’) by Maja Lee Langvad (2023)
Selected poems from ‘Phantom Pain Wings’ by Kim Hyesoon (2019)
‘Rise’ by Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner and Aka Niviâna (2018)
There is no expectation to read these texts in advance as we will read out loud, one person and one paragraph at a time, together. Copies of the reading will be handed out during the session.
The title of this event comes from Kim Hyesoon's poem ‘Phantom Pain Wings.’
Bios
Taey Iohe is an artist whose work spans across diverse media, including moving images, sound, social practice and assemblage through an Asian crip/queer lens. Their approach fuses research-based work with personal narratives that challenge socio-botanical entanglements within environmental hormones and climate justice. Taey holds a PhD in the programme of Gender, Identity and Culture, funded by Writing on Borders, at University College Dublin. A member of Feminist Duration Reading Group and co-founder of the Decolonising Botany Working Group, Research Associate at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Derry~Londonderry. They currently teach Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art. (@taey.iohe)
Grace Eunhye Park is a curator and producer based in London and Seoul. Her curatorial research focuses on visual communication methodology, community narrative, disabled art, and time-based media. Since 2015, she has actively engaged in various exhibitions and collaborations with artists. She has worked as the coordinator of the Korea Artist Prize 2021 at MMCA, production manager for the Korea Pavilion featuring artist Jane Jin Kaisen at the Venice Biennale in 2019, and program and production coordinator of SeMA Biennale Media City Seoul in 2016. Recently, she presented the programme ‘Fly and Flock’ as a member of the collective LUNCHBOXCOLLLRCTIVE at Chisenhale Studios (2023).
‘Halmang’ is Jane Jin Kaisen’s first UK solo show. It features polyphonic moving-image works, archive and reference materials. By weaving together oceanic cosmology and gendered histories, the exhibition is an in-depth inquiry into narratives of subjective and collective loss, resilience, and the formation of alternative communities.
Image: 'Halmang', Jane Jin Kaisen, 2023, film still. Courtesy of the artist.
Image Description: A photograph depicts strips of white fabric entwined across sharp black volcanic rock.
