Tong(ue)s, 2022
ceramics, bronze, bamboo, thread, PVA glue
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About the Artist
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Transcription
My name is Soyoun Kim. The title of my artwork is ‘Tong(ue)s’.
As the title indicates, the work visually interplays the approximate sound and spelling of the words ‘tongues’ and ‘tongs’ through the installation of multiple casts of my tongue and tongs made of bamboo. The difference between these words can be clear for a person whose first language is English, but my pronunciations of the words often have been corrected as an immigrant whose mother tongue is not English. Drawn from my experience, the work interprets multiple implications, such as misunderstanding in language and its hierarchy that extend to culture, tasting and eating food, cultural differences, and the silence from speaking mother tongues.
My tongue twists to form various shapes to produce so-called correct pronunciation. The tongue becomes heavy like bronze. It becomes broken. I try to mend the broken tongue, but it only leaves the visible mark of the scar. The pain of speaking a foreign language, not being able to speak my mother tongue, festers inside my mouth. The tongue becomes mouldy, not being able to function. I mimic a white language, but my tongue cannot be white tongue like porcelain. I cannot be the same as the white. The difference in language and culture cannot be erased to match harmoniously, but it is visible and as it should be.
The red colour of blood inscribes emotional pains and trauma on the white porcelain tongue. It is also the colour of living humans regardless of their ethnic and cultural background. The pumping vein-like threads connect multiple tongues and tongs to the tree and the ground in Rookwood Cemetery, wishing the buried silence breaks through it and transforms into blooming tongues and tongs to create a visual cacophony of cultural differences. Through the HIDDEN exhibition, I want to share the emotional effects of the loss of translation of language and culture with people who experienced and were buried in the cemetery. And I hope, my work can provoke the discourse on how to live together with differences as equal human beings in the shared place we call home.