VAV - moving image
Performance with wood, rice, plaster and water
In Battered Comfort, my sister and I batter rice with hammers until it turns into tteok 떡 (rice cake) which we eat together with the audience. Eating tteok is a communal act which generates belonging, whereas battering it is violent and creates pressure. By pounding on the individual, society is formed – like rice grains pounded into tteok. Nevertheless, tteok is all about sharing: through violence a sense of belonging and comfort is created. Belonging and pressure exist in the same space and need each other.
(Hammering also serves as a catharsis for my struggle of belonging in Korean culture. As a German-Korean, it is difficult to fit into my mother’s country. No matter how hard I pound, I will not become that rice cake.)
In collaboration with my sister Katharina Sook Wilting and my mother Dong Sook Park.
