What is Alice’s Fate?
(2024-2025)
In collaboration with Scarlett Kim & Jenny JY Kim
2024-2025
Multi-channel desktop performance
Funding has been made possible by The Puffin Foundation
If Alice’s Fate (2024-2025) is the digital glossary for the expansion of Ryu’s research into Alice Hyun (1903-1956?), the first Korean American born in Hawaii and the first Korean American to gain US citizenship through birth, What is Alice’s Fate? (2025) is the acknowledgement of the futility of knowing the fate of Alice Hyun. Even with the historical traces that Alice has left behind in her family archives, military documents, and immigration records, there are many questions unanswered in her life. What is Alice’s Fate? (2025) does not try to answer any of these questions but becomes a starting point for contemporary Korean diasporic femme artists to translate Alice Hyun’s life and archive into inspiration for the socio-politics of the present.
What is Alice’s Fate? (2025) is video and performance collaboration between director & artist Scarlett Kim; producer & translator Jenny JY Kim; and C. Ryu. Ryu invited the artists to read Jung Byung-Joon’s biography of Alice Hyun, and over a span of months, the three creatives engaged in conversation around translation and visibility, investigating how being seen can often transmute into a trap, living in a world so dedicated to monetizing and consuming identity.
What is Alice’s Fate? (2025) is a multi-channel desktop performance where the three scholars engage in rhizomatic conversation around Alice while following internet worm holes | rabbit holes around Hyun including Alice Hyun articles written in English and Korean, Alice in Wonderland inspired music videos, mudang (shaman) Instagram reels, conversations with AI as Alice Hyun, and pulling oracle cards channeling the spirit of Hyun.
The timer in the desktop performance video was set to 31 minutes, a nod to the March 1st Movement in 1919 during the Japanese Occupation era of Korea, which radicalized and politicized Alice Hyun and continues to inspire diaspora members across the world today.
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Jenny (Jon Young) Kim is currently based in Seoul, South Korea. After graduating from Princeton University with a degree in Comparative Literature, she worked as a theatrical producer, lighting and sound designer, translator in various capacities including Apple TV+’s Dr. Brain as the writer’s room translator, and exhibition research assistant for the 2022 V&A exhibit Hallyu! The Korean Wave. Jenny strives to highlight stories of displacement and cultural interaction and is currently working on a script about Korean women studying abroad in the early 20th century.
김전영은 2020년에 프린스턴 대학교에서 비교문학과 전공, 연극, 뮤지컬, 동아시아학 부전공으로 졸업한 후, 현재까지 20개 넘는 공연에 조명, 음향, 무대 디자이너로 참여했으며, 대학 졸업 작품으로는 김은성 작, 정다영 역의 현대극 <목란언니> 영어 초연의 프로듀싱, 무대·조명 디자인과 드라마투르그 역할을 맡았다. 그 외, 애플TV 한국 첫 오리지널 ‘닥터 브레인’의 작가방 번역가를 비롯하여 번역가로도 활동했으며 영국 빅토리아 앤 앨버트 박물관의 2022 한류! 더 코리안 웨이브 전시의 큐레이션팀으로 참여했다.
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Scarlett Kim is a creative producer, director and innovation leader making unclassifiable experiences at the intersection of live performance and immersive technology.
Scarlett is co-founder and Executive Creative Producer of Center for Unclassifiable Technologies & Experiences (C.U.T.E.). Scarlett recently joined Culture House Immersive as Head of Innovation, entertainment studio building best-in-class immersive experiences, sustainable revenue for artists, and a shared distribution network across location-based and XR platforms.
Recently, Scarlett collaborated with Chloé Zhao and Book of Shadows as creative producer; co-founded and produced Worlds in Play, a gathering of game and theatre artists (ASU Media and Immersive eXperience (MIX) Center); and produced Live Arts Exchange [LAX] Festival (Los Angeles Performance Practice) with partners including REDCAT, MOCA, and LA Dance Project.
As Director of Innovation & Strategy of Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Scarlett led the transmedia department of the largest repertory theatre in the US, helming 70+ bold new works expanding the definition of theatre, with partners including Park Avenue Armory, VAST, and Glow Up Games.
Scarlett’s innovation leadership has been featured at cross-industry platforms including SXSW, SIGGRAPH, AWE, USITT and Immersive Experience Institute. A trusted advisor, Scarlett serves on the CalArts Alumnx Council and mentors for NEW INC and Australia Council for the Arts.
Previously, Scarlett was co-founder and Artistic Director of The Mortuary, performance laboratory for unclassifiable experiments spanning Korean shaman rituals, chamber orchestras, and experimental larps. At CultureHub, global art and technology community founded by La MaMa and SeoulArts, Scarlett oversaw artistic programming of the LA studio, and spearheaded Re-Fest, an annual art + technology + activism festival.
Other highlights of Scarlett’s 10+ year journey as an artist and arts leader include collaborations with REDCAT, East West Players, Prague Quadrennial, Korea Foundation, and Chilean National Council of Culture & Arts.
MFA, Directing, CalArts. BA, Theatre & Performance Studies and Visual Arts, University of Chicago.