April 5 – Hayoun Kwon: Films and Virtual Realities
Posted by | Paris Jomadiao | Posted on | March 30, 2018
Hayoun Kwon, still from The Bird Lady, 2017. Image courtesy of the artist.
Through a unique interplay of documentary techniques and animation technologies, the films and virtual reality projects of Paris-based South Korean artist Hayoun Kwon present new realms for history and memory. Biographical accounts of a Nigerian asylum seeker in Lack of Evidence (2011) and a South Korean soldier serving in the Korean Demilitarized Zone in 489 Years (2016) are mapped onto spectacular animated landscapes that undergo dramatic transformations in perspective. North Korea’s propaganda village Kijong-dong is replicated in Kwon’s Model Village (2014), which highlights the irony of an uninhabited utopia, while The Bird Lady (2017) immerses viewers into a Parisian apartment turned aviary. Kwon’s striking images reflect the shifting psychic and geopolitical realities of her subjects. The artist presents a selection of films, two recent virtual reality projects, and discusses the ideas and technologies that sustain her practice.
2011–2017, South Korea/France/USA, multiple formats, ca 75 min + discussion
Hayoun Kwon in person
Hayoun Kwon is a filmmaker and multimedia artist. Her work has been screened in museums, galleries, and film festivals around the world including at the Cinéma du Réel festival at the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the San Sebastian International Film Festival, Spain; Doc Fortnight at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California; and the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Netherlands, among others. Kwon is the recipient of numerous awards in filmmaking and media art including the Prix de la Jeune Création (2012); the Arte Creative Newcomer Award from the European Media Art Festival in Osnabrück, Germany (2014); the Prix Découverte des Amis du Palais de Tokyo (2015); and first prize at the 62nd International Short Film Festival in Oberhausen, Germany (2016). She graduated in 2011 from Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing, France. She is based in France and South Korea.
Tags: 2018 > Animation > Experimental Film > Hayoun Kwon > Interdisciplinary > Korea > memory > multimedia > testimony > Virtual Reality
About
Conversations at the Edge is a weekly series of screenings, performances, and talks by groundbreaking media artists.
CATE is organized by SAIC's Department of Film, Video, New Media, and Animation in collaboration with the Gene Siskel Film Center and SAIC's Video Data Bank.
Programs take place at the Gene Siskel Film Center (164 N. State / Chicago, IL / 312.846.2600), unless otherwise noted.
