Ivetta Sunyoung Kang
South Korean Multidisciplinary Artist
01.04.2019 - 30.06.2019
Ivetta Sunyoung Kang is a Montreal-based South Korean multi-disciplinary artist working across film, video, video installation, A/V performance, and expanded cinema. In addition, she extends these disciplines with philosophical and phenomenological inquiries.
Interested in cinema as a durational artform, and specifically in moments where the invisible transitions to the visible, Kang finds deeper meaning in the imprinted “dead memories” of found footage, rejuvenating these to subvert their initial commercial or didactic intent. Through a process of creative reincarnation, she aims to move towards, as she puts it, a “new language of cinema,” one that incorporates a deep appreciation of film’s materiality, poetic fragility, and sculptural potential.
This project is a long-term commitment to discovering possibilities of cinema beyond the virtual moving image, proposing the potential to affect the viewer “in the now physically.”
One day, I had an opportunity to look at film strips of found footage of 35mm Hollywood motion pictures, produced in the 90s. It felt as if each single object shot on the film surface was individually exchanging glances with me. With this experience, I started thinking that I could foster a totally different state of engaging with film if I highlighted more the physicality of the chemically generated surface of found footage instead of relying on the given images and narratives it had been produced for.
Ivetta Sunyoung Kang received an MFA degree in Studio Arts, Film Production Concentration at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. She studied Filmmaking in the BFA program, Film Production at Sang Myung University in South Korea.
She has explored collaborations with both filmmakers and sound artists through varied mediums and art platforms. Since 2017, she has been involved as part of a duo called CCVX? with a sound artist Eric You, creating venue-specific, audio-visual installations and performances.
Since 2010, Kang’s works have been presented at numerous international film festivals, including the JeonJu International Film Festival in South Korea, Chennai Woman International Film Festival in India, Cucalorus Film Festival in the US, San Diego Underground Film Festival in the US, The Festival Les Instants Video in France, Maryland Film Festival in the US, Ae Film Festival in the US, and Salón Internacional de La Luz in Columbia. Kang was shortlisted for the 2016 Sylvie and Simon Blais Award in Montreal, Canada. She was the winner of a graduate scholar award in 2013 and also was awarded a Concordia Partial Tuition Fee Scholarship in 2012.
Kang has held a solo exhibition at Indie.Art.Hall.Gong, Seoul, South Korea (Body: Everything Started From His Words, That the Abstract, Starts From the Concrete) in 2017, as well as multiple group shows and installations, including: L’INCONNUE, Montreal, Canada (Got it For Cheap) in 2018; Gallery 2112, Montreal, Canada (Homecoming, Homegoing: Into Heterotopias) in 2018; Jip Gallery (Connections) New York City, the USA in 2018; M.A.I. Montreal, QC Canada (Sérendipité) in 2017; LemoArt Gallery, Berlin, Germany in 2017 and Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal, Canada (Ignition 12) in 2016. Additionally, a book of her poems, Absent Seats (original title. 곁에 있다 없을 때 빈자리를 모른다), a collaborative music and poem project with Needle& Gem, was published in August, 2019.
During her three month artist residency at SomoS, between April and June 2019, Kang made active use of the support of the SomoS team, its artistic community and resources to develop both her new works Counterpoint (a cooperation with Sound-artist Eric You) and Intolerance of Uncertainty, presented in the group exhibition Orphaned Memories produced by the SomoS team. Thematically incorporating core preoccupations of Kang’s art, this exhibition was presented to popular acclaim at SomoS exhibition space as part of the official program of the 2019 municipal 48Hours Neukölln Arts Festival.
On June 11th 2019, the artist moderated one of SomoS’ regular P2P Feedback Sessions. Besides the informal in-house networking throughout the residency period, she also took part in the P2P Feedback Session hosted by Marcia Vaitsman, Ph.D., the Artist-In-Residence Exchange Meetup between GlogauAIR and SomoS and attended the ongoing Scope Sessions Media Art Salon and Artist Talks series #82, #83 and #84, and attended the SomoS exhibitions. Last but not least, visiting artist/educator/curator Frank J Stockton (Los Angeles) visited Kang’s atelier and critiqued her work during a SomoS Atelier Tour.
Ivetta Sunyoung Kang homepage
Ivetta Sunyoung Kang’s residency was supported by the Arts Council Korea. Eric Dong Ho You’s collaboration was supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.
