3. Pop(Corn): Chan Sook Choi

Interview by Insun Woo

^{Published on September 3rd, 2024}

Though its culture is celebrated globally, Korea is often perceived as monoethnic by both its nationals and foreigners. Indeed, the country has established its identity as a modern state around the narrative of a unified bloodline tracing back to the legendary figure of Dangun. Yet, as with other parts of the world, Korea has long been shaped by the movements and mingling of people, animals, plants, goods, and ideas – the pace of which has only accelerated in the past couple of centuries. Today, traveling through and beyond Seoul quickly yields an image of Korea that is far from the imaginaries produced by the country’s myths of single-bloodedness. As such narratives of homogeneous identity render more individuals – such as immigrant laborers and migrant brides – invisible, it is important to present images that inspire new imaginaries of Korea as a rhizomatic place defined by migration, hybridization, and multiplicity.

Artist Chan Sook Choi’s THE TUMBLE (2023), a three-channel video installation showcased at the 12th Seoul Medicacity Biennale, initially caught my attention with its subtle references to the desert – a landscape I had been calling home for several years. As I spent more time with the work, however, it began to evoke imaginaries of the world as a rhizome. Apart from expanding the visual vocabulary of its viewers (most of whom are Koreans) by introducing an unfamiliar landscape without exoticizing it, the work re-presents tumbleweeds as metaphors for contemporary human subjectivities and as subjects in their own right.

1. Chan Sook Choi, THE TUMBLE, 2023. 2 channel video installation (4K, color, sound), Single channel video installation (Full HD, color, sound), Archives. 12 min (2 channel video, loop); 9 min (single channel video); Dimensions variable (installation). Commissioned by the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale and Pre-production supported by Arts Council Korea. Courtesy of the artist. Exhibition view of the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale THIS TOO, IS A MAP, Seoul Museum of Art, September 21-November 19 2023. Photo: GLIMWORKERS. Image courtesy of the artist.

On two large screens, bathed in a cool teal color, are tumbleweeds, whirling around or lying lifelessly in a dusty abandoned warehouse. In the third channel, tumbleweeds transform into agents that choose to cut their roots and follow the wind to new places, falling, and forming unprecedented bodily communities in the process. This poetic shift opens up an imaginary of a world composed of nomads. The tumbleweeds’ swirling movement and stillness in the first two screens can be re-read as moments in the unfolding process of falling and forging unexpected relationships with others – like those between US military veterans and Native Americans, hinted at the end of the third channel and will be the focus of the next work, ALL THAT FALL.

Chan Sook, herself an itinerant who has moved between Berlin and Seoul since 2001, has faced bodies that are “pushed away and leaking out” – as conceptualized in her upcoming eponymous monograph – through her work, with THE TUMBLE being the latest. On a crisp fall afternoon in 2023, Chan Sook and I sat down at her office at Chugye University for the Arts to talk about THE TUMBLE, which quickly expanded to touch upon her reflections on what “allows” one to work with others’ stories to her experience of navigating the systems of contemporary art production and exhibition.

THE TUMBLE connects to my interest in questioning and creating a fissure in seemingly natural phenomena.

Insun Woo: I’m curious how you became interested in tumbleweeds.

Chan Sook Choi: I first saw tumbleweeds in Chile while filming for qbit to adam (2021). I was intrigued by their delicate yet dense structure, which allows them to absorb water from the desert ground. As I researched them more, I became interested in how they create abscission layers as they prepare to break off from their roots, how they roll in groups to spread their seeds, and how they sometimes end up caught on fences. I thought that tumbleweeds are similar to immigrant communities in the western United States and that I could tell the story of people being pushed out from their lands through tumbleweeds. I found out that there’s a huge tumbleweed population in Australia and the western US. I decided to go to the latter since I have friends in Arizona. The initial plan was simple: I wanted to film tumbleweeds rolling around the desert and interview experts like botanists. When I got there, I got a driver named Jason to help me get around, and that’s when the work of THE TUMBLE began.

2. Chan Sook Choi, qbit to adam. Exhibition view at Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, 2021. Photo: Chulgi Hong. Image courtesy of the artist.

I.W.: Could you tell me more about the abandoned warehouse-like space in the second channel of THE TUMBLE? It’s quite haunting. Why that location?

C.S.C.: It’s Phoenix Mart. It’s a mega-mart in the US. A scandal broke out while it was being built, shutting down the construction process altogether. Today, the building is not in use. It just happened that a lot of tumbleweeds were in front of it when I went, and there were more inside. Maybe it was because of its old feeling, but the building felt like a graveyard – which is why I decided to film the place.

I.W.: The work feels sci-fiesque because of its teal color. Was this sci-fi aesthetic intentional?

C.S.C.: I wanted to create a laboratory-like feeling. Color is used to tell whether a tumbleweed is alive or not, as it turns from green to brown or gray throughout its life. In the case of tumbleweeds bearing seeds in their bodies, I wanted to give them a unified color so that the viewer wouldn’t be able to distinguish the state they’re in. As I’m not exactly exploring the plant itself in my work, I wanted them to look like something else.

I.W.: As you were making this work, were you thinking about the relationship between contemporary society and science?

C.S.C: Scientific research today is not accessible to those outside the field, and it may even seem irrelevant to everyday life. It takes several stages for it to enter the everyday realm, and a lot of capital and power are involved in the process. But, I believe scientists are ultimately interested in humans and their lives. After all, scientists are also people who come home after work, wash their hands and feet, and eat. This aspect is similar to the work done by artists. While artistic research may seem to be out of touch with reality, if you look closely, it is grounded in real life. This correspondence between the two fields attracts me to science. Also, scientific research can greatly impact our lives—just as findings about climate change are doing these days. So, I pay consistent attention to it and collaborate with scientists.

While artistic research may seem to be out of touch with reality, if you look closely, it is grounded in real life.

3. Chan Sook Choi, THE TUMBLE, 2023. Single channel video (Full HD, color, sound). 9 min. 04:42. Commissioned by the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale and Pre-production supported by Arts Council Korea. Image courtesy of the artist.

I.W.: The language you use in the third channel caught my attention. The tone, which is informative at first, becomes personal and poetic from the point where the phrase “Cut the roots,” is introduced. Whose voice is this?

C.S.C.: I wrote the text as I was thinking of the people who will appear in the second work of the series. In a way, the third channel in this work signals Part Two. During my research trip, I met several war veterans who seem to be navigating daily life well but actually are suffering from PTSD. This made me once again realize how absurd it is that the state systematically organizes violent experiences on a mass scale. Deployed in distant lands as soldiers, individuals come into contact with a different culture through this very specific, horrifying lens that is war, and they return home with trauma. What interested me the most was the significant Native American presence among the veterans. I wondered why, and it turned out that joining the military was the only way for Native American men to escape their strained financial situations on reservations. Today, the veterans are doing activist work with other Native Americans. Between the two groups exists trust that forms only through sustained collaboration over a long period. If not for the veterans, I probably wouldn’t have met Dr. Wensler Nosie, as my request to meet had been turned down several times.

I.W.: Who is Dr. Wendsler, and how did this encounter feed into your work?

C.S.C.: Dr. Wendsler leads Apache Stronghold, a movement that fights the destruction of the Apaches’ sacred lands through the Apache tradition of running. For example, Mount Graham in Arizona has been a site of struggle since the 1980s, when the Vatican decided to build an observatory at the mountain’s summit, where Apache deities known as gaan live. Apache beliefs were dismissed as Jesuit astronomers declared that there was no sacredness to the land. Dr. Wendsler said, “You can never experience the sacredness of the land traveling on a limousine or a car. You must walk with your own two feet, as if passing through several rooms through a corridor, to experience it.” This struck a chord with me. I started imagining the moment one cuts one’s roots, the foundation of one’s identity. In a way, the Apaches’ struggle centers on the act of leaving their homes behind to walk hundreds of kilometers. I wrote the text of the third channel with this in mind.

I realized that this combination wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for me. I wanted to tell the stories that came out because of this combination.

Yet, I was also aware that this story isn’t mine. I didn’t live through the war, and I don’t know much about the military or Native American history. I constantly reflected on whether it made sense for me to do this. But then, when Dr. Wendsler, his wife and daughter, Jason (the driver), veterans and their families, and I came together on the last day of interviews, I realized that this combination wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for me. I wanted to tell the stories that came out because of this combination. Our conversation opened up when Jason, one of the veterans, started talking about his trauma. As I listened to the stories, I realized that these were the stories of people who had to leave their grounds and drag their transformed bodies back home. These were stories about the expelled and broken body, or individuals who are falling over and over again. That’s when I realized that this story might be one I could tell.

4. Chan Sook Choi, THE TUMBLE, 2023. Single channel video (Full HD, color, sound). 9 min. 06:35. Commissioned by the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale and Pre-production supported by Arts Council Korea. Image courtesy of the artist.

I.W.: Is the question whether you have the “right” to tell a story something you work through every time you make new work?

C.S.C.: While I’ve somewhat formulated a personal answer to this question, it manifests itself in new ways. There’s no single standard that decides what stories one can tell. I think an artist should tell only as much as they can take responsibility for. It’d also be a shame to not tell an important story because of the question of whether one has the “right” to do so or not. In the past, I participated in the activist movement for the Japanese military “comfort women” survivors but concluded that my role isn’t that of an activist. Since the movements are organized by humans, there were some aspects that I found questionable. But if an artist values a cause a lot, I think they’d have to both be an activist and make work. The kind of work that results from this is quite different.

I.W.: You shared a bit about intuition during your talk at Seoul Museum of Art. What is intuition for you, and what were some moments of intuition that arose as you worked on the tumble?

C.S.C.: For me, intuition is more a series of moments than a single epiphany. It’s like an experience. Artists don’t work toward a specific goal but delicately respond to what’s happening here and now. The ideas that arise from capturing one’s observations and questioning how they formed, how they could be woven together, expanded upon, and visualized – I’d say this is intuition. In the case of THE TUMBLE, when I learned that tumbleweeds create abscission layers through cell division, I began contemplating this phenomenon. I wondered why tumbleweeds would need to prepare to cut their roots. There must be a reason they acquired this characteristic, right? I think this persistent questioning led to the intuition that what is happening is a succession of falls. Rolling is caused by external forces like the wind instead of one’s power, and so is the act of falling – though you could fall due to your misjudgment. I thought that tumbleweeds might be falling, though we dismiss their movements as rolling. Falling continuously wears the body, and I wanted to look into this point. THE TUMBLE connects to my interest in questioning and creating a fissure in seemingly natural phenomena.

What is happening is a succession of falls.

5. Chan Sook Choi, THE TUMBLE, 2023. Archives. Commissioned by the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale and Pre-production supported by Arts Council Korea. Courtesy of the artist. Exhibition view of the 12th Seoul Mediacity Biennale THIS TOO, IS A MAP, Seoul Museum of Art, September 21-November 19 2023. Photo: GLIMWORKERS. Image courtesy of the artist.

I.W.: What’s on your mind lately related to your practice?

C.S.C: As I like to create an environment rather than just visual objects, I consider the characteristics of the exhibition space and its visitors to conceive new ideas. This means that my work changes every time I exhibit, which comes with certain difficulties like cataloging or explaining my work to others. I’m reflecting on how I could catalog my work. I’m also struggling with this wholly different world that is parenting. I’m doing fine mentally but, physically, I often find myself at my limit. One of the hardest things has been changing my work time, which has been 10 pm to 2 am for more than 40 years as I focus best between those hours. Shifting these hours to the morning hasn’t been easy. I’m realizing just how difficult it is to be responsible for a living being alone. Apart from this, I’ve been reflecting on what kind of art must be taught at the university level, as I teach at Chugye University of the Arts.

I.W.: Could you elaborate? What should be taught at art universities?

C.S.C.: As long as I’m defining my “job” as an artist, I think it’s my responsibility to create an economic foundation that allows me to continue making work. Reality is harsh, and artists need practical operational skills—just as other self-employed people do. I participated in Goldrausch, a Berlin-based postgraduate professional development program for women artists, which teaches ways to create an economic foundation. When I first came to Chugye, I wanted to do something similar to equip students with knowledge that would help them sustain their practices upon graduation. Students love it, but a part of me feels skeptical these days. We recently did a class on “branding” strategies for artists. We talked about deciding on a few keywords that describe one’s practice and accumulating work around those. While I know this is useful, I felt sad that artists should reduce their work to a few keywords. I’m also concerned whether my students are able to utilize such management strategies while not letting those restrict their practices. Is it right for students, the majority of whom are 18-to-22 years old, to spend time considering these kinds of matters? There is work that can be made only between those ages, and I wonder if these practicality-centered classes would prevent students from creating that work.

It’d be impossible to change [the art world] alone, but I hope that many people would contribute from their own places so that we can bring about change collectively, over time.

I.W.: As a recent graduate, I know I would’ve appreciated a professor like you. The art world and its systems are difficult to navigate, especially for fresh grads.

C.S.C.: As long as I’m part of the art world, I believe I must take responsibility as a subject and put in the effort to change its conditions for the better. Humans can’t live longer than 100 years after all, and I don’t see much meaning in focusing only on building my career for honor and fame. I used to think that it’d be nice if artists who have reached the so-called top in their careers would use their voices to improve the art world. But, I now see that with new positions come new responsibilities. The ability to improve the status quo doesn’t come naturally with a higher position. I think this desire for a better art world has strengthened since I started teaching students. love my “job” as an artist and want to encourage them to pursue it, but I also know how awful the art world can be. It’d be impossible to change it alone, but I hope that many people would contribute from their own places so that we can bring about change collectively, over time.

About the artist:
Chan Sook Choi, based between Berlin and Seoul, experiments with narratology related to physical and spiritual migration in multidisciplinary forms including exhibitions, lectures, performances, and publications. Choi confronts and assembles the different fragments that arise through migration, creating new locality and fluid topographies rather than fixed realities. She has held solo exhibitions at Art Sonje Center, Seoul (2017); and the Taipei Digital Art Center (2010). Her work has been presented at events including a National Theater of Korea national brand performance in Seoul and the festival Ars Electronica, and in settings such as the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. She has also earned selection to the Seoul Museum of Art’s emerging artist support program (2017), and a visual art support prize from Germany’s Stiftung Kunstfond (2021). In 2021, she received the Korea Artist Prize, awarded by the MMCA and the SBS Culture Foundation.

About the writer:
Insun Woo, based between Abu Dhabi and Seoul, is a writer and researcher with a B.A. Art History from NYU Abu Dhabi. Her life experience of growing up in cities across the world—from London, Sofia, Seoul, Moscow, and Osaka to Abu Dhabi, New York, and Istanbul—as an East Asian woman informs her present-day interest in contemporary art that explores urban culture and history, memory studies, feminist thought, and the history of modern Korea. Currently an editor at Global Art Daily, Insun has previously managed a professional enrichment program for arts students at NYUAD Career Development Center; created a project related to “comfort women” survivors as part of the Guggenheim Museum’s Summer College Workshop; and contributed to Art in Culture, Canvas Magazine, Fiker Institute, and Guggenheim Blog.

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3. Pop(Corn): Chan Sook Choi

THE TUMBLE connects to my interest in questioning and creating a fissure in seemingly natural phenomena.

While artistic research may seem to be out of touch with reality, if you look closely, it is grounded in real life.

I realized that this combination wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for me. I wanted to tell the stories that came out because of this combination.

What is happening is a succession of falls.

It’d be impossible to change [the art world] alone, but I hope that many people would contribute from their own places so that we can bring about change collectively, over time.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 08 –– SELSummer/Fall 2024

E-08++ Summer/Fall 2024

About ––

Interviews ––

Open Call ––

Newsletter ––

Chronological Archive ––

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB Summer 2020

E-01++ Fall/Winter 2020-21

🎙️GAD Talk Series –– Season 1 2020

E-Issue 02 –– NYC Spring 2021

E-02++ Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 03 ––TYO Fall 2021

E-03++ Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 04 –– IST Spring 2022

E-04++ Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 05 –– VCE Fall 2022

E-05++ Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJSpring 2023

E-Issue 07 –– AUHWinter 2023-24

E-07++ Winter/Spring 2024

🔍 Legal

3. Pop(Corn): Chan Sook Choi

THE TUMBLE connects to my interest in questioning and creating a fissure in seemingly natural phenomena.

While artistic research may seem to be out of touch with reality, if you look closely, it is grounded in real life.

I realized that this combination wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for me. I wanted to tell the stories that came out because of this combination.

What is happening is a succession of falls.

It’d be impossible to change [the art world] alone, but I hope that many people would contribute from their own places so that we can bring about change collectively, over time.

︎︎︎Previous Next︎

E-Issue 08 –– SEL
Summer/Fall 2024

E-08++
Summer/Fall 2024

E-Issue 01 –– AUH/DXB
Summer 2020

E-01++
Fall/Winter 2020-21

E-Issue 02 –– NYC
Spring 2021

E-02++
Spring/Summer 2021

E-Issue 03 ––TYO
Fall 2021

E-03++
Fall/Winter 2021-22

E-Issue 04 –– IST
Spring 2022

E-04++
Spring/Summer 2022

E-Issue 05 –– VCE
Fall 2022

E-05++
Fall/Winter 2022-23

E-Issue 06 –– DXB/SHJ
Spring 2023

E-Issue 07 –– AUH
Winter 2023-24

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Winter/Spring 2024