Join us for an afternoon exploring Bay Area Now 9 artist Heesoo Kwon’s Leymusoom Garden through traditional Korean games and performance, a conversation with Kwon and her multidisciplinary Leymusoom Garden collaborators, and a screening of Kwon’s video piece Leymusoom Garden: New Sun.
In her multimedia practice, artist Heesoo Kwon is a world builder and the founder of Leymusoom, an autobiographical feminist religion and utopia that serves as an ever-evolving framework to explore her family histories and communal feminist liberation. In her newest work, Leymusoom Garden, Kwon reflects on the Korean shamanistic worldview, the Dokkaebi folk myth (Korean: 도깨비), the Mago creator myth, Skywoman myth, and her own female ancestors.
Arrive early to learn about and play a selection of traditional Korean games from 1–2pm. The program will begin with community arts group Kkiri Kkiri leading a Samulnori, a performance practice based on traditional percussion music from farming communities in Korea. After, Heesoo Kwon will be joined by Leymusoom Garden collaborators: Zoë Latzer, curator of Kwon’s solo exhibition Leymusoom Garden: Following Naked Dancing and Long Dreaming at ICA San Jose, Karen Cheung, curator of the group exhibition emerging light from the longest night at SWIM Gallery, and the co-gardeners of Leymusoom Garden, Danna Kim and Youjin Han. The program concludes with a screening of Kwon’s most recent video work Leymusoom Garden: New Sun.
This program is presented in partnership with ICA San Jose, whose exhibition Leymusoom Garden: Following Naked Dancing and Long Dreaming is up through February 18, 2024, and SWIM Gallery.