Jane Jin Kaisen’s works as the practice of exploring history, memory and trauma

Abstract

The text refers to the artistic practice of Jane Jin Kaisen, a visual artist born on the Korean Jeju Island, but living and working in Copenhagen. The starting point is her exhibition at esea contemporary in Manchester (2024), during which she showed works such as Halmang (2023), Of the Sea (2013) and The Woman, the Orphan, and the Tiger (2010). Balancing between multiple worlds, she portrays in them political histories and collective memories inextricably linked to individual stories. Returning as an adult to her home island, the artist here grapples with one of the most “silenced” events in modern Korean history. She “uncovers” colonialism, including not only the Japanese occupation and subsequent American domination, but also the phenomenon of transnational adoption to Western countries. In doing so, she evokes the world of haenyeo (women of the sea) and shamanic practices, while juxtaposing popularised memories of her grandfather and traditions of her grandmother/mother. One of her main motivations seems to be to explore the ways in which trauma from previous generations is passed on to the present and how to heal. Her ambiguous status as an adoptee and granddaughter of a Survivor makes it possible to evoke Marianne Hirsh's category of “post-memory” and the strategy of reviving and collecting stories, as Ernst van Apphen understands it. Jane Jin Kaisen is interested in revealing complexity rather than creating linear narratives, as she declares that she lacks concrete memories, which makes her turn to archival material. In this context, her practice can be assessed as a search for a trace or “ghost form” of history that needs to be redeemed and evoked in the present through shamanic rituals. In other words, in this way, she “frames and illuminates the sore spots”, demonstrating the invigorating function of art in dealing with tragic events.