A letter, found in an appendix to the archive of the artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, (1951-1982) after Taey Iohe’s Southern Sea Silk Mountain exhibition, Insa Art Space, Seoul 2010-2011.

I am in front of a brick walled gallery. It has been some time since I have been here in Seoul. I hesitated as a mirror-door reflected my reality back to me. The mirror-door seemed to doubly hide the interior of the building. I pushed open the heavy door; then I encountered four new doors in an emerald-blue color. This time, I let my arms sweep them open without any hesitation.

A wave of white silk and blue silk were blowing in and out, open and closed, as I moved in between the thresholds. The title, “Threshold Sea”, is placed on the wall, in English, in small wooden letters. Twelve personal spaces, embroidered letters and diagrams on translucent scenery. You wrote something for me, and you put my words in one of the rooms also. You left me a message: “The place you receive absolute hospitality; the place you can be taken care of; the place you always have to leave to live; you are in transit and move from one place to another without knowing your direction. You are very careful when you step forward across thresholds, because you fell before. A hesitating step…”

Now I came out from your “Threshold Sea” and faced the stairs. The stairs downwards are warmed by a beam of light; the stairs upwards have a cool blue light. I followed warm light downstairs; I touched the cold cement wall in the corridor. I can see three moving images at each corner of the room, two tilted desks with red threads, and a large wooden light-box installations centrally. The tilted desks appear to be fold-able and therefore mobile. I look at them all closely and move around in the space like a careful cat.

In two of the moving images, I can see two actors express something in sign language and facial expressions; it is difficult to judge their gender. One is wearing a white shirt, and she asks me whether something is possible: “Is it possible to write a letter? Is it possible to read this? Is it possible to tell me a story? Is it possible to translate a foreign language?” This signer gestures such that one of her hands forms a clapping motion with her mouth very quickly, and makes the sound ‘Pa!’ Soon I could see that it is easy to follow what she is trying to ask me without a sub- title. Her repetitions for a simple language of their own, which I learned to understand as I stood there watching.

The other moving image, in which the signer was wearing a black shirt, you unkindly did not place any subtitles. He shows us various expressions, he cries, he surprises, he sulks, and he lets himself go. In the beginning of the video, a caption states that the signer will translate the poem, ‘남해금산 (Southern Sea Silk Mountain) by Sung Bok Lee. I saw the full script of this poem within the light-box display; I could read the poem there as watched the signer on the screen.

I confronted the drawings, the dialogues that you made, the photography, and the blue prints for the installation in the lightbox. I found a piece of my writing; I realised you had travelled to my hometown to research this. You had explored page by page, video by video, at the archive of my artworks. I realised that you had re-drawn my hand-writing for the embroidery in the “Threshold Sea”. I saw layered papers, covered with sketches, diagrams, poems, instructions and messages; these reminded me of my own preparations for my work.

On the tilted desks, you made knots of deep orange thread, stretched from one nail to another nail. I had seen these threads in your previous work too, as ball of wool by a floating bed, and as the traces of constellations in a star-chart. Letters from the Korean and English alphabets, perhaps fallen from the “Con-Transtellations” work I have seen photographs of, were stuck to garden forks positioned under the screens of moving images. I imagined you digging and working-over the languages, searching for an expression for the dialogues you dreamed of.

You will only discover whether words are not translatable over the undying labour of trying to translate a word. Isn’t the deed of writing, also unyielding doing? As if you are tailoring a suit with pieces of unfinished thought, unsure decisions, loose observations, and vague memories. The suit will be formed as one contained piece. You may write and erase repeatedly, fitting and re-fitting pieces of material.

I departed the basement gallery and walked upstairs to find the origin of this cool blue light. I started to hear fragments of voices, becoming louder as I ascended the steps. I saw a huge air-duct pipe entering the building through a corner-window on the stair-case. The vast grey tube punctured the window, flowed into the space upstairs, embraced and entered the walls, ceilings, and floors. The space looked like the inside of someone’s body, the pipes appearing as connections to that body. In some hidden spaces, there were several indistinct texts, dimly lit by faint projectors. I read a short dialogue between a hammer and hole, a list of things that you are afraid of, folded papers, drawings that were barely recognisable projected upward from the floor. The layered voices were sometimes in English, sometimes in Korean. I could hardly make out what the women were saying, but I caught stuttered and fractured voicings of ‘translation’, ‘diaspora’, ‘words’.

In your written introduction, you say that ‘Namhaegumsan is a signifier for charged internal memories, not just the geographical material reality of a vast mountain. To be spoken aloud, how does pronunciation affect this idea? When we pronounce ‘Nam-hae-gum-san’, the lips meet each other, then slip apart, and meet each other again, then drift apart to allow the final syllable. There are spaces and gaps within the words, that other meanings might find room for themselves.’ I feel the breathings between those ‘the time that the lips are apart’ in the space. I stretched out my fingers to comb through the dark walls, with a careful step. I found a number of small felt beads stuck there. They are like  nipples on the body of space, placed at the spot where previous exhibiting artists had punctured the walls. The holes in this space define the internal space of the body and also the history of this space.

I found a pair of rubber boots, apparently filled with a green metallic liquid. I imagined they might be mine.

I think of you taking this exhibition apart. You will pluck the felt beads from the wall, you will dismantle the screens and projectors. You will destroy twelve blue and white rooms, you will un-drill the nails from the ceilings to take the air-duct pipe away, and unscrew all electric cabling that was hidden from the audience. This might be the most defining moment of all for making your art. Undoing something reminds us of doing.

We are vaguely connected like a cleft lip and cleft palate. The tongue that stretches out from a muscle in the neck dances up and down, to make contact at the right moment to form the right sound; your acts of translating will vibrate the air and come to talk to me.

I pushed the heavy mirror door open again to leave this space. I am, again, far away from you.

Your imaginary audience,
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

* This letter is written in from the position of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. This is written in Korean first, and then translated into English. The Korean version of this writing is featured in the Art and Culture monthly art magazine in February 2011. Written and translated by Taey Iohe *
January 2011