I’m Allergic to Archival Dust
(Proposition 4: Breathing)

^{Two videos, sculptural objects, archival print-outs, photographs, two print-based works, a body of photographs of method-making processes. 2023-ongoing.}

I’m Allergic to Archival Dust was conceived and prototyped as the first iteration of Proposition 4: Breathing in 2023 during the three-month-long residency at ZK/U (Berlin, Germany). It consists of several prototype components across different mediums.

Proposition 4: Breathing will revolve nearby the history of the South Korean guest workers whose labour was exported to West Germany under the cross-national agreement starting in the late 60s. The iteration will include interviews, personal archives and belongings of elderly nurses residing across Germany and their respective acts of storytelling. Who owns their memories? Why didn't some (or most) of their memories become part of the "history"? What ephemeral and subtle bodily enunciations will be enacted when certain memories are summoned to the contemporary act of telling and performing in a reparative mode of speech act? Breathing will consist of many paused, sporadical, yet constant breaths emanating from invisiblized stories to fill archival and epistemological crevices in the leading fabric of the guest worker's history. The artist acknowledges that the Written Resolution is written by the Koreanische Frauengruppe in Deutschland, extracted from <국제여성운동 연대 자료집, 1990> (International Women Solidarity Movement Archive, 1990). The Light of the Factory song used in the video is composed by Minki Kim and used in the play, sharing the same title (Dir. Hyegyung Lee) enacted by the Koreanische Frauengruppe in Deutschland. The recording file was provided by the group from the Koreanische Frauengruppe in Deutschland Archive.

^{On a separate monitor, a single-channel video ->>}

^{This is a movie trailer made for a movie that “never exists.”}

_{_{Credits:

The written resolution is written by the Koreanische Frauengruppe in Deutschland from (국제여성운동 연대 자료집 (1990). The Light of Factory is composed by Minki Kim and the song used in the video is a recorded version of the Koreanische Frauengruppe for their fundraising play enacted in 1990, Berlin as a solitary act with the rights of Korean women factory workers in South Korea in the 80s. The recording file is from 재독여성모임 아카이브.}}

^{On the fence ->>}

^{Both of the print-based sculptural installation are made of Rhee Young Jun’s archival materials (Rhee was a former miner migrated to Bochum in West Germany in early 70s and worked as a political activist until his passing three years ago.) The archives were generously shared with me by Rhee’s friend and comrade, Obok Kwon.}

pw:dddd

^{In the centre of the room ->>}

Porous structures of how knowledge and selected archival knowledge is enacted

^{On the floor ->>}

erotics and eros lurking in the notion of archive for its illegibility, impenetrability, yet fascination derived from contemporary resonances

^{On the other side of the wall ->>}

Create systematic, social and philosophical apparatus as “rules” and “orders” embeded in the project as situationing positions for the audiences and the pice.

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