Saturday, October 15, 2011

The Whistle......

Single Channel Video/ 9 Minutes/South Korea /2011
National Museum of Contemporary Art, South Korea.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.

-from 'Only Breath' by Rumi



Whistle is a sound created from our breath. Our breath does not have any border or word. It makes a kind of sound. Our breath can create some melody which are made in our memory. These whistles are proving that we are alive here. Here, word or color or job does not matter . We are one human being, an important part of the universe. The sound come from our lovely breath is our lovely universal whistle.

I collected various whistles from immigrant people in Korea who do different kind of jobs here; some of them are factory worker, teacher, student, businessman. I visited some areas in Korea where these people stay. I joined in some dinner, games and get together and asked some of them whether they are interested to give their favorite whistle of any song or music. From those immigrants I collected some whistles and video and recorded them.

I went different places of Korea where these immigrant people stay and sometimes I introduced with them in subways and buses. In the video they are from China, Vietnam, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mongolia. Cambodia, Japan, Philippine, New Zealand and one of Korean who helps immigrant workers. Most of them know Korean as a second language.

Last one minute, this video shows black & white images, where the people are dancing, cooking, playing Volleyball. In these places I met lots of unregistered immigrants who are struggling for their livelihood. But they seemed happy, they just acted like happy. Some of them frequently shift from one place to another for many socio-political problems. This video is my imaginative expression where I show some people are expressing their memory through whistle . There are lots of things for expressing one's personal feelings and identity like words, language, flag, border, color, religion, education, economy, population, crime etc. But breathing is a common organic process which all human beings experience similarly. So I focused this video on this important common organic process through which people can make music and music, an auditory communication that comforts our heart.