HAN (2021)

produced by

han diaspora group

Performed by Kwonyin, Saewon Oh, Yunuen Rhi, Jeong Stransky, Kayla Tange, & Caroline Yoo

Sound by Scarlett Kim

Filmed by Kayla Tange & Caroline Yoo

In October of 2019, a group of artists of the Korean diaspora engaged in ritual constellation workshop led by Yunuen Rhi at The Mortuary, a laboratory for unclassifiable practices run under the direction of Scarlett Kim. A thread that emerged from the series of workshops was the expansive and often contradictory notion of han. Han, a concept often described as uniquely “Korean,” resonated with the artists in wildly variant yet hauntingly similar ways—it became a container for the artists to member and re-member their own narratives as well as the collective narrative of their Korean heritages.

From the series of constellation workshops was born a group of Korean artists - who began to intimately engage and collaborate in rhizomatic ways. Comprised of a myriad ways of “being Korean,” the gathering of artists have shared strategies of embodiment and revolution in a hegemonic world, studied ancient and contemporary Korean myths, and have bonded like long-lost soul sisters. The artists began to serve as mirrors, channels and home for each other through their intimate exchange; finding resilience through being together.

This short film captures the ritual release of Han in context to the displacement of all the artists’ personal living histories that breathe inside their bodies. How do we begin to re-claim, re-enact, or re-contextualize something living that sits in your body that has no English translation?