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Flowing Violence: meet me at the water, immersive video installation
흐르는 폭력: 물에서 만나요, 몰입형 비디오 설치


3-channel video (4K color, stereo),  9’ 09”, Dec 2024



<흐르는 폭력 Flowing Violence>은 한국계 미국인 시인 김경희와의 협업으로 제작된 멀티센서리(multi-sensory) 설치 작업이다. 시간과 국경을 초월하는 전지구적 물의 흐름과 연결되어 함께 흐르는 폭력을 다룬다. 한국전쟁 학살 희생자들을 태운 재, 한강에 갓난 아기와 투신하려던 할머니의 피눈물, 그리고 현재 이루어지는 폭력의 현장에서 흐르는 모든 잔여물들이 흘러 ‘우리’의 몸에 닿는 순간을 상상하도록 이끈다.



Flowing Violence (2024) is a multimedia installation made in collaboration with Korean American poet Kyunghee Kim. It invites the audience to imagine how silenced violence may flow with water, reaching the land and the bodies we live in, transcending borders and time.

The average speed of water molecules is around hundred meters per second in an open space. We are 70 percent water and about 98 percent of all the atoms in our body are replaced every year. We are in constant flow. The flow of water, the flow of life, the flow of history, and maybe, the flow of violence.


the blood and ashes of a few hundred civilian refugees, who were massacred by American armies under the No Gun Ri Bridge during the Korean War,
and ‘the tears of blood’ (피눈물) that my grandmother shed, while dragging her two babies to Han River to commit family suicide after the war,
and more


might have been dissolved into the water,
flowing from there to here, from then to now,
taken into our bodies, haunting us,
saying, 

meet me at the water
I am here,
all along
with us, before us,
in us*


A video component of the installation is a 3-channel video, meet me at the water (2024), of which title is borrowed from the title of Kim’s poem written for the video. The video consists of distinct perspectives: high-angle shots and underwater shots of the Huron River near the artist’s residence. These represent two views: one of humans living their everyday lives, and the other of violence, which may flow beneath the surface—quietly but constantly. The seemingly peaceful river carries faint, almost invisible traces of blood and ashes. As the voice in the video whispers and recites a poem revealing American imperialist violence in Asia, the camera begins to travel underwater, where the blood and ashes visibly mingle and dissolve into the river’s flow. The video invites the audience to feel submerged, flowing alongside these particles, and to connect with a silenced tragedy carried by the water.



*an excerpt of the poem, meet me at the water (2024) 




Full Work Statement (ENG) ︎︎︎

Read the poem (ENG, KOR) ︎︎︎














Directed by Okyoung Noh
Poem by Kyunghee Kim
Filmed by Okyoung Noh, Ben Zink
Edited by Okyoung Noh
Music by Chien-An Yuan
Installation advised by Joe Rohrer
Voice by Kyunghee Kim, Leah Crosby, Okyoung Noh











Flowing Violence: and be our body, multi-sensory installation

흐르는 폭력: 그리고 한 몸으로, 멀티센서리 설치


a drink dispenser filled with water with hints of iron and smoke, blue gel light filter, fog with scent of blood and ashes, dimensions variable, Dec 2024



<흐르는 폭력 Flowing Violence>은 한국계 미국인 시인 김경희와의 협업으로 제작된 멀티센서리(multi-sensory) 설치 작업이다. 시간과 국경을 초월하는 전지구적 물의 흐름과 연결되어 함께 흐르는 폭력을 다룬다. 한국전쟁 학살 희생자들을 태운 재, 한강에 갓난 아기와 투신하려던 할머니의 피눈물, 그리고 현재 이루어지는 폭력의 현장에서 흐르는 모든 잔여물들이 흘러 ‘우리’의 몸에 닿는 순간을 상상하도록 이끈다.


Flowing Violence (2024) is a multimedia installation made in collaboration with Korean American poet Kyunghee Kim. It invites the audience to imagine how silenced violence may flow with water, reaching the land and the bodies we live in, transcending borders and time.

The average speed of water molecules is around hundred meters per second in an open space. We are 70 percent water and about 98 percent of all the atoms in our body are replaced every year. We are in constant flow. The flow of water, the flow of life, the flow of history, and maybe, the flow of violence.


the blood and ashes of a few hundred civilian refugees, who were massacred by American armies under the No Gun Ri Bridge during the Korean War,
and ‘the tears of blood’ (피눈물) that my grandmother shed, while dragging her two babies to Han River to commit family suicide after the war,
and more


might have been dissolved into the water,
flowing from there to here, from then to now,
taken into our bodies, haunting us,

and be our body




The installation component of the work, and be our body (2024), features fog and drinkable water in a fountain which is commonly used in a party or celebration in the United States. Upon entering, the audience feels the fog immediately absorbed into their skin. This fog carries a layered scent of blood, smoke, bullets, and burnt ashes. The audience is encouraged to drink the water, which contains iron supplements and liquid smoke. These subtle yet palpable hints of violence, represented through different forms of water, surround and circulate within the bodies of the audience – everyday, and therefore, inevitably. In this way, the audience becomes an integral part of the flow, sensing that their bodies are intertwined with the flow of violence.











Installation by Okyoung Noh
Scent layerd by Roland Derin Deschain
Work inspired by a conversation with Seunga You




The Land of the Unanchored. multimedia installation
불화하는 땅. 멀티미디어 설치


sand and clay mixed with the soil from Mrs. Song’s grave, 4-channel audio with 5.1 speakers, 2-channel video with projection, dimensions variable. Oct 2024



This installation explores the lands that Mrs. Song, my deceased North Korean grandmother, lost and desired. I attempt to revisit and sculpt her "land of milk and honey" —which she has never attained—through clay mixed with soil from her grave. The audience moves around small sand hills in the space, which resemble mountainous landscapes in Korea. Four speakers buried in sand whisper stories from those who remember Mrs. Song in different ways, illegible and unanchored.


<불화하는 땅>은 작가의 돌아가신 이북민 할머니, “송씨＂가 잃고 갈망했던 다양한 땅들에 대한 이야기를 송씨의 가족 및 동료 6인과의 인터뷰를 통해서 풀어놓는 멀티미디어 설치이다. 작가는 인터뷰의 내용에 대응하며 송씨의 땅과 몸을 상징하는 점토를 손으로 힘껏 조형한다. 관객은 모래 밑에서 흘러 나오는 오디오에 귀를 기울이며 송씨의 땅을 시각화한 모래 섬들 사이를 떠돌아 다닌다.




photo by Ben Zink




Chimera 1: Phylogenesis. performance film
키메라 1: 계통발생. 퍼포먼스 필름



13 minutes 9 seconds

Filmed on April 29, 2024
2024년 4월 29일 촬영

Duderstadt Center
듀더스탈트 센터




Chimera is an immersive movement-based sound-optics-focused performance installation, in collaboration with AAPI Performance Collective IS/LAND, and optics researcher, Do Young Kim.

The video features three dancers exploring, confronting, and ultimately dismantling a giant, vertical installation that sits in the center of focus. The installation serves as a visual allegory for the white supremacist patriarchy that many AAPI women have historically encountered in western society, manifested most recently in the pervasive pattern of anti-Asian hate crimes inflicted mostly on women. Cloaked within the fabric of this installation, the dancers’ movements are immersed in mutation - attempting at first to assimilate but then, acknowledging the futility of the endeavor, emboldening their movements and bodies in anger and frustration. The dancers eventually subsume pieces of the establishment into a new creature: monstrous yet powerful, unshackled and on the cusp of liberation from the oppressive structure, creating something new and previously unimaginable - a Chimera.



퍼포먼스 영상 <키메라>는 광학 연구자 김도영과 북미를 중심으로 활동하는 아시아-태평양계 미국인 퍼포먼스 그룹 IS/LAND와의 협업으로 제작되었다.

3인의 아시아계 여성 무용수들이 거대한 흰색 설치물로 형상화된 미국 사회의 구조적 차별을 분해하고, 한데 얽혀 춤추며, 이를 대체하는 새로운 크리처를 유기적 움직임으로 형상화한다.

이들의 움직임은 정적이고 곧은 것이 아닌 동적이고 얽힌 것, 단수가 아닌 복수인 신체를 상징적으로 드러낸다. 분기되고 결합하고 증식하는 세포의 이미지와 더불어 무용수들의 신체는 변형되고, 확장된다. 






Exhibitions and Selected Screenings:


Leaning Against the Wrong Place, Tribowl, South Korea (2024)
Toronto International Women Film Festival, Canada (2024)
KYLYN APIA Arts & Culture Festival, United States (2024)











Director: Okyoung Noh
Editor: Okyoung Noh, Chien-An Yuan
Dancers/Choreographers: Mia Brooks, S. Jean Lee, Catherine Miller
Music: Whodat, Chien-An Yuan
Installation: Okyoung Noh
Video Projection: Do Young Kim, Okyoung Noh, Chien-An Yuan
Producer: Okyoung Noh
Executive Producer: Do Young Kim
Camera Operators: Eesha Nagwani, Maddie Vassalo, Luke Rademacher, Dylan Chen, Mya Enxer, Aaron Williams

Tech Team: Patterson Mckinney (Managing Producer), Matt Giard (Assistant Audio Studio Manager), Catherine Miller (Assistant Video Studio Manager), Steve Eberle (MSA, Associate Director)

Sponsor: ArtsEngine



 







photo by Chien-An Yuan







Cowboy Dreams. short documentary film
카우보이 드림즈. 단편 다큐멘터리 영화

video (4K color, stereo) , 10’ 57”,  2024-  (work in progress)




The documentary film shares the story of Kim DeBord, a Korean American adoptee artist, who reclaims the landscape of the American West as her own despite facing discrimination and violence. By connecting herself to history and community, Kim stitches together a new landscape for herself and others.

위 단편 다큐멘터리 영화는 어린 시절 미국으로 입양된 한국계 여성이 자신을 거부한다고 느꼈던 미국 서부의 풍광을 어떻게 자신의 장소로 만드는지를 다룬다. 역사와 커뮤니티와 연결되어 새로운 정체성을 획득한 주인공은 자신과 모두를 담아낼 새로운 땅을 손바느질로 엮는다.





Exhibitions and Screenings:


Sometimes Space. United States (2024)












Directed and Produced by Okyoung Noh

Executive Producer: John J. Valadez
Director of Photography: Ben Zink
Additional Camera: Okyoung Noh
Lead Cast: Kim DeBord
Addtional Casts:
Sylvia DeBord, Linette Lao, Kyunghee Kim, Jean S. Lee, Leo Chen, Okyoung Noh

Editor: Okyoung Noh
Music: OBT Music
Sponsored by Michigan Asian Pacific American Affairs Commission