Soyoun Kim
Master of Contemporary Art
Tongue-Tongs draws on my perspective as a Korean Australian immigrant whose mother tongue is not English. A multisensory display of works, including sound, video, scented candles, porcelain, terracotta, bronze, and screen print, aims to evoke the emotional effects of the lost translation of language and culture. Correcting my tongue to be someone else’s tongue, it becomes heavy, broken, stiffened and a stranger. The estranged tongue loses its words by the perception that only sees to understand. Cultural differences are also present in the tongue that tastes and eats. Korean Kimchi-scented candles, overpowered by the scent of Japanese honeysuckle candles, reflect the forced silence of the Korean language during the Japanese colonisation. However, the mother tongue does not disappear but multiplies as I become bilingual.