Mar 26 – Soon Mi-Yoo: Songs from the North

Posted by | Conversations at the Edge | Posted on | March 16, 2015

Thursday, March 26th | Soon Mi-Yoo in person!

Soon-Mi Yoo, still from Songs from the North, 2014. Courtesy of the artist

South Korea–born and Cambridge-based artist Soon-Mi Yoo’s debut feature is a nuanced look at political ideology and everyday life in North Korea. Winner of the prestigious Golden Leopard for Best First Feature at the 2014 Locarno Film Festival, the film interweaves biography (Yoo’s father fought in the war and many of his left-leaning friends abandoned South Korea for the North[AB1] ), footage shot on three visits to the country, popular television spectacles, cinema, and song. Curator Andrea Picard writes, “Yoo ventures into uncharted territory as she attempts to understand the psychology and popular imagery of the North Korean people on their own terms, the fissures between daily life and its propagandistic representation, and the ideology of absolute devotion to the ruler who continues to drive the nation towards its uncertain future.” In English and Korean with English subtitles.

2014, US/South Korea/Portugal, DCP, 72 min + discussion

Soon-Mi Yoo (1962, Seoul, South Korea) works with photography, film, and text to explore marginalized histories. Her films have been exhibited at festivals internationally, including Oberhausen, Pompidou Center, New York Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, and Seattle International Film Festival, and her photography has shown across the US, including the International Center of Photography, New York and Boston Center for the Arts. Yoo is a recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Media Arts Fellowship, a fellowship from the American Photography Institute, and the National Asian American Telecommunications Association Grant. She received her MFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Arts, where she is currently on faculty.

Soon-Mi Yoo Program Notes

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