“I do not construct reality – my body is reality”

Yong Sun Gullach is a Korean-Danish artist and a human rights activist with focus on Transnational adoption as colonial practise based in Copenhagen Denmark. She operates at the boundaries of performance, poetry, film, music, noise and installation art. Her art practice investigate the Southeast and East Asian diaspora and desorientation as she unfolds the aesthetics of the expressions and narrations that are embedded in-between the body, sounds and the spoken word. 

Yong Sun Gullach investigates the essence of the loss of an understanding of a self and the strategies to overcome what is not there. The human nature’s attempt to replace the self by de-and reconstructing an identity is unfold in the complex co-creation of the body and the body’s surroundings. A loss of that unfolds in a many layers always changing always present.

By letting body and space unfolds it’s complex dimensions the investigation of the co-creation between artist and spectator starts – traces creates an impact on the other person’s memories and an understanding of the dialogue is being presented. By evoking basic feelings in the other – a portal for communication opens in her art where words, sounds and visuals exchange. This deconstructed loss of the artists self opens for an exchange constructing a new narration and thereby the performers body in the room.

Gullach’s performance-investigations adds a textuality of flesh and time. The artists body in space and time bends what cannot be captured but only absorbed, in a single unique space continuum for each spectator.

Side by side is the row of performance actions presented as restistance – as empowerment.
Her works has been curated in Europe, Korea and the US.

Yong Sun Gullach,  born 1967, Seoul, Korea/Copenhagen, Denmark

Short curriculum for The Starchild Project started 2015

– for a full list of all works of Yong Sun Gullach click here

“To adopt a chronotype” (performative reading)

1. Performed at “Crossing Borders: Migration and the Visual Arts in Denmark, 1800-2021”, Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters, Copenhagen, Denmark 24th of September 2021
2. Published at Bastard Blog ved Mette Garfield

“Jeg optiller en far” (performance)

1.  Perfomed at Poesifestivallen Opbrud, Literaturhaus, Copenhagen Denmark 2021

“White face” (performance)

1. The Performance Art Festival Body Landscapes, Verdenskulturcentret, Copenhagen 2nd. of October 2018

“Hwarang – imprints of a poet warrior” (installation)

1. Exhibited at “Gotta Serve Somebody” co-created exhibition with Lise Haurum, Laila Svensgaard, Åse Eg, Tanja Nelleman Poulsen, Anne Dyhr, Rikke Hansen at www.kh7artspace.dk, Århus June 22nd – July 3^rd 2017

“The Star Child ” (performance)

1. Performance Art Festival Transistors meetings, Warehouse 9, Copenhagen 6th of October 2018
2. curated by Hvid[mə] Archive at Gallery |Meter|, Copenhagen ^10th of June 2017

“Mistress of un-representation” (performative poetry)

1. Published in “The Motherland”, ed. Laura Wachs, 2018
2. Published in Marronage #2, June 2017
3. performance reading with Lesley-Ann Brown part of “Country of Loss” at Hovedbiblioteket, Copenhagen, 3^rd of March 2017

“Besættelse” (performative poetry)

1. Vernissage for EU Anti-Trafficking Day and HopeNow 10^th Anniversary, 18^th of October 2017
2. Feministisk Varieté, Teater Republiques Reaktor scene, 29^th of September 2017
3. Part of “Country of Loss”, Hovedbiblioteket, Copenhagen 3^rd of March 2017
4. Part of Hvid[mə]Archive, 2017
5. published in Friktion – magasinet for køn, krop & kultur,  “Opsamling 2015-16”, 2016
6. Friktion Magazine “Opsamling 2015-16” launch, Huset Copenhagen, 25^th of November 2016
7. Dansk Sociologiforening, Jazzhouse Copenhagen, 26^th of October 2016

”Re-enacting the Transnational Adoptee” (performance)

1. “Living Archives”, Malmø Kunstmuesum, Malmø Sweden 11^th-13^th of April 2018
2. Part of “Decolonial Daughters: How coloniality destroys family – On art, migration, decolonization and empowerment” curated by Teresa Maria Diaz Nerio, Artspace “La Casa de Barro”, Amsterdam The Netherlands 17^th-19^th of February, 2017
3. Social Exclusion, Postcolonial Perspectives and Discrimination, center for Social Exclusion and Learning SEAL bi-annual seminar, University of Ålborg, Copenhagen Denmark 6^th of October 2016
4. “Still (the) Barbarians”, EVA International, 37^th Biennial, curated by Koyo Kouoh, Limerick City, Irland 14^th – 16^th of April and 12^th of July, 2016
5. Flabfestival, Verdenskulturcentret, Copenhagen Denmark 20^th of September 2015
6. Novam Artem, Vision of Dome, Copenhagen Denmark 30^th of July, 2015
7. Miami Performance International Festival, curated by Charo Oquet, Miami, USA 21^st of June 2015
8. Hysteria Festival, SOMA Gallery, Berlin  Germany 11^th of April 2015
9. Westgermany Artspace, Berlin Germany 10^th of April 2015

 Readings and art talks

1.  Art talk, Crossing Boarders: Migration and the Visual Arts in Denmark, 1800-2021, Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters, Copenhagen, Denmark 24th of September 2021
2.  Art talk, IPAF19, Warehouse9, Copenhagen Denmark 13th of April 2019
3. Panel talk, “Work, work, work”, curated by Gallery |meter|, Nørrebro, 8th of December 2018
4. Panel talk ,”International Performance Art Festival Body Landscapes”, Nørrebro, Denmark, 2nd of October 2018
5.  Panel talk, Shaking the habitual: final seminar, curated by Gallery |meter|, Warehouse 9, Vesterbro, 16th of June 2018
6. Panel talk, “Reproduktion, slægtsskabelse og Nekropatriarkat” at “Shaking the Habitual”, Galleri |Meter|, Nørrebro, 9th of June 2018
7. “Stjæler”, Mothertongue|Fathertongue, Den sorte Firkant, Nørrebro 6th of June 2018
8. Presentation at “Living Archives”, Malmø Kunstmuesum, Malmø Sweden 11^th-13^th of April 2018
9. Presentation at “Archives that matters”, Statens Kunstskole, 2018
10. Art talk at Gallery |Meter|, Copenhagen 10^th of June 2017
11. Art Talk together with Miriam Firesewra Berhane Haile moderated by Temi Odumosu at SMK Fridays,  Copenhagen 5^th of May 2017
12. Voice material – part of the sound mosaic at “Ufortalte Historier”, Statens Museum for Kunst 18^th of May 2017 – January 2018 curated by Living Archives
13. Social Exclusion, Postcolonial Perspectives and Discrimination, center for Social Exclusion and Learning SEAL bi-annual seminar, University of Ålborg, Copenhagen 6^th of October 2016
14. Art Talk moderated by Koyo Kouoh at EVA International closing symposium for Ireland Biennial “Still (the) Barbarians, Belltable Arts Center, Limerick City, Ireland 13^th of July, 2016

Education

“Gotta Serve Sombody”, collaborative art workshop, KH7 Århus, 2017
Art Writing Masterclass ”Læs Verden/Lad verden læse dig” Århus Literature Center, 2014
Diplomacy degree in Management(UH), DTU 2011
Masters Degree in Mediastudies, New School University, NYC 1999
Cand.mag in Literature, University of Copenhagen, 1997