Dear alumn Yunjoo Kwak (DAI 2011) will show a new film Simbang (2024) at Garage Rotterdam as part of Underdeveloped #2, a series of group exhibitions at Garage Rotterdam. The film was made after 4 years of field research and film production on Jeju Island, South Korea. The feature film delves into the process of spiritual recovery in the aftermath of the April 3, 1948 Massacre (Jeju Uprising) by combining found footage taken by American military forces during the massacre with documentation of rituals held at various locations across the island. Underdeveloped #2 opens on Friday February 21st at 7pm.
On Jeju Island, “심방” (Simbang; 神房) refers to a shaman. “神” (sin) means spirit, and “房” (bang) means space or room, translating directly into a spirit room or spirit space, thereby evoking a spatial aspect of their beings in connection to the unseen world, yet powerfully sensible through the process of ritual. The camera follows all processes of the ritual; summoning the gods and spirits, greeting them on land and underwater, serving them with offerings, playing music and dancing, communicating with them, cleansing the spirit and clients of evil energies and sending the gods back to their realm. During these rituals, the 18,000 gods of Jeju myth and the life stories of the people who died in 1948 come together to weave a story of their sorrow and violence, allowing trauma to be processed. The physical, psychic, and emotional impacts of trauma go beyond the limits of the dominant historical archive and its knowledge.
51 Personae, Collective Cartographies against Neoliberal Development (Serda Demir, Iliada Charalambous, Santiago Pinyol, Kari Robertson, Julia Wilhelm), Faizi, Kasi Graphic (Angga Cipta and Chad Cordeiro), Lonneke Jonker, Luke Murphy, mul-thee-fuhngk-shuh-nl, ook_anders, Rotterdam Atletiek Olympia, Sudan art panel (Hassan Omar Ahmad, Hassan Abbas Ossam Abdullah, Mohammed Abdullah, Yahya Adam), Take-a-Way, Tomi Hilsee, Vincent van Velsen, WdKA-Autonomy Lab, Yingfei Li, Yen-Ting Kuan and Limestone Books, Yunjoo Kwak, Garage Rotterdam, Stichting Mano, Reza Afisina and reinaart vanhoe and all visitors and friends of Underdeveloped — invite you to participate in a new edition of Underdeveloped.
Underdeveloped #2 is part of a series of three exhibitions on 2024/25 for Garage Rotterdam. Rather than focusing on individual artistry, this series approaches art as a collective process — a process of building together. The exhibition focuses on education, infrastructure, language and perspectives.
Garage Rotterdam is once again transformed into an intimate living room where you as a visitor can contribute to the development of the exhibition. For example, you can use an open kitchen, a carpet with recording equipment, a library and other tools that are part of Underdeveloped #2.
More information via Garage Rotterdam.
About Yunjoo Kwak