In October of 2019, a group of artists of the Korean diaspora engaged in ritual constellation workshop led by Yunuen Rhi at The Mortuary, a laboratory for unclassifiable practices. A thread that emerged from the series of workshops was the expansive and often contradictory notion of han. Han, a concept often described as uniquely “Korean,” resonated with the artists in wildly variant yet hauntingly similar ways—it became a container for the artists to member and re-member their own narratives as well as the collective narrative of their Korean heritages.
From the series of constellation workshops was born a group of Korean artists who began to intimately engage and collaborate in rhizomatic ways. Comprised of a myriad ways of “being Korean,” the gathering of artists have shared strategies of embodiment and revolution in a hegemonic world, studied ancient and contemporary Korean myths, and have bonded like long-lost soul sisters. The artists began to serve as mirrors, channels and home for each other through their intimate exchange; finding resilience through being together.
As this gathering of Korean diaspora artists grow and morph across borders, platforms, and time, this zine series is to serve as a mechanism to capture the moment-to-moment discoveries and in-progress perspectives, as truthful reflections of the forever transforming nature of their identities as individuals and as a group.
