Refusing obliquely: On siren eun young jung and the three moments of performing in anomaly

Description

My presentation considers South Korean media and visual artist siren eun young jung (she writes her professional name in all lower cases) and her work Yeoseong Gukgeuk Project (2008- ), a series of archival research-based installations and performances about all-women musical theatre in the 1950s’ Korea. To recognize queer politics as well as performative nature of the all-women musical theatre tradition, jung uses the concept of “anomaly,” a variation of refusal, as an important set of strategies to intervene in a number of areas. I categorize her acts of intervention into three themes or moments of her research and artistic practices: queering of the archive and theatre history; tampering with conventional curatorial practices in gallery and theater; and rendering of the question of gender identity and same-sex desire performative itself. Closely reading her installation and performance works, I discuss how siren eun young jung’s pieces critique the normative narratives about the nationalized and heteronormative theatre history of South Korea. I also explore how jung’s methodology further interrogates the ways in which scholars and institutions conceptualize the archive as stable and enduring. Materials presented at the internal seminar are published in the Venice Biennale catalogue of eun young jung’s work.

Period	2 Oct 2019
Event title	Wednesday Gender Seminar Fall 2019: Co-presented by Gender Studies Programme & Gender Research Centre, CUHK
Event type	Seminar
Location	Hong Kong
Degree of Recognition	Regional