LOOP FESTIVAL
city screen
11 - 24 November 2024
The performance “Aveugle Voix” by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1975), along with her foundational texts “Dictée” (1982) and “Exilée/Temps Morts” (2009), powerfully articulate the struggles of the migrant experience, capturing the silencing of marginalized voices and the challenges of self-expression when identity is intertwined with historical trauma. This profound exploration of language and memory serves as the inspiration for Suwon Lee’s video “Dictée/Exilée”. In this work, Lee honors Cha while reflecting on her own journey as a Venezuelan woman in self-exile, navigating the complexities of an identity shaped by dual diasporic displacement, as the daughter of Korean immigrants born in Venezuela. The interplay between images, music, and recited words weaves an immersive narrative, leading the audience on a dreamlike exploration that questions the notion of homeland while expanding it into a fluid and ever-evolving sense of identity.
Dictée/Exilée
By Suwon Lee
2024
Single-channel video, stereo sound
24'56
Moonset
120 x 90 cm
Ed. 5 + 1 PA
By Suwon Lee.
To create Moonset, Suwon Lee defied the notion of productive time. Sitting, waiting and observing, she spent the stretch of the night’s end (or the morning’s beginning) photographing a gibbous moon as it set into the horizon, its waning glow reflecting off the North Atlantic Ocean below. Lee took the photograph in 2013, when she was passing through the volcanic oceanic island of La Palma, off the coast of north-western Africa. She was returning to her native Venezuela from Iceland, where she had been experimenting with photographs of the sun and its light, a focal point of her artistic practice since the mid-2000s. In Moonset, the sun remains a spectral presence. However, now its radiating light is mediated by its lunar companion and, subsequently, the surface of the sea, both reflections that puncture the condition of all-encompassing darkness. In capturing these phases, Lee enacts a process of measuring through the moon’s cycles.
- Excerpt from Madeline Murphy Turner, "The Measure of the Moon," in Night Fever: Film and Photography After Dark, edited by Shanay Jhaveri (Cologne: Walter Konig, 2024).
[How to Measure Time] Stranger/Undocumented
By Suwon Lee
Pigmented inkjet print
50 x 72 cm
Ed. 5 + 1 AP
Stranger/Undocumented challenges traditional timekeeping by presenting a clock that represents legal status rather than hours and minutes. Divided into fourteen sections reflecting statuses like & quote tourist "e and & quote asylum seeker,& quote; it illustrates the fluidity and complexities of legal identities in contemporary society. Viewers are encouraged to contemplate the implications of legal categorization, migration, and belonging, challenging preconceived notions of citizenship and inclusion. This piece prompts reflection on the diverse experiences and struggles of individuals navigating bureaucratic systems and legal frameworks, inviting viewers to reconsider the significance of legal status in shaping personal identities and social dynamics.
Self-Portrait as Consciousness of Time
By Suwon Lee.
170 x 57 cm
Ed. 5 + 2 PA
Self-Portrait as Consciousness of Time is a contemplative, ritualistic performance and site-specific land art piece documented through photography. The work delves into themes of time, impermanence, and self-discovery. Suwon Lee explores the cyclical nature of rebirth, transcending physical forms and dimensions. Through a symbolic burial in the landscape of Almería, she merges with the land, forging a profound connection to both nature and her ancestral lineage. This act symbolizes her effort to root herself in new territory after migrating from her native Venezuela, a journey that led her across two continents before arriving in Spain.
Stones—ancient, enduring witnesses—form the self-portrait and emphasize that, like the elements from which they arise—fire, water, earth, wind, and space—humans are inextricably connected to the cosmos. The burial of the symbolic body signifies both a return to the earth and a reflection on the cyclical rhythms of existence.
Acknowledging the impermanence of all things, the piece accepts the possibility of its destruction by natural forces or human intervention. Yet, its deeper significance endures: a reminder of the transient nature of life and the continuous passage of time. Lee dedicates the performance to her ancestors, honoring the struggles and resilience that shaped her lineage while extending a universal wish for safety, well-being, and inner peace.
Blending performance, ritual, and the natural environment, Self-Portrait as Consciousness of Time is a meditative reflection on the human journey. It invites viewers to contemplate their own paths toward inner clarity and consciousness, even amidst the struggles of earthly existence
Gradient I (Valencia)
By Suwon Lee.
90 x 135 cm
Ed. 5 + 1 PA
In “Gradient I (Valencia)”, Suwon Lee captures the serene transition of the sunset sky from blue to orange, using the natural gradient of light as a metaphor for the shifting states of mind. The subtle merging of colors evokes the passage of time—an ever-present theme in Lee's work—while also reflecting the fluidity of thought and emotion. As with her other explorations of impermanence, the sky’s gradient becomes a mirror for the inner journey, where mental states blend from clarity into intensity.
Drawing on the Mahayana Buddhist concept of Mahamudra, which likens the mind to the vastness of the sky, this photograph reflects the idea that, “the mind, like the sky, is unbound, clear, and open, yet capable of holding all phenomena without being altered by them.” The expansive, open sky in “Gradient I (Valencia)” mirrors this philosophical insight, suggesting that despite the passing of thoughts, emotions, and experiences—represented here in the shifting hues of sunset and in the absence of clouds—the essence of the mind remains untouched and vast, like the sky itself.
The blue-to-orange gradient speaks to the mental states we experience, from the cool calm of introspection (blue) to the warmth and vibrancy of expression (orange). Yet, as with the sky, these transitions are temporary, impermanent reflections of deeper mental landscapes. This work also echoes Lee’s *Self-Portrait as Consciousness of Time*, where she merges with the earth and time, here inviting the viewer to embrace the mind’s spaciousness and transitory nature.
In “Gradient I (Valencia)”, the natural world becomes a lens through which to contemplate both personal transformation and the timelessness of the mind, reminding us that, much like the sky, our inner worlds are boundless, ever-changing, yet deeply connected to the universe.
Opening Hours
From Tuesday to Friday from 11am to 7pm.
Saturdays from 11am to 2pm.
C/ de Trafalgar, 32. Ciutat Vella, 08010 Barcelona