Min-Young Her’s work starts with ㅁ. This is the Hanja form for mouth (Hanja is the traditional Korean writing system, based on Chinese characters). This symbol, with an expanded series of associations including portals, openings, entrances and exits, gates and doorways, eating, shouting, truth, and language itself, is the primary reference in this non-narrative, dream-logic sequence by Min-Young Her. The artist is interested in the relationships between such letterforms and the physical body. In particular, the work focuses on the sensory connections between the mouth and the eye; between speaking, tasting and seeing; between being seen and just being. These ideas, centred on eye and mouth, have fascinated many artists historically, including performance artist and writer Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel, and philosopher Georges Bataille. Drawing on imagery including endoscope footage from inside her own throat, Min-Young Her’s work asks what constitutes the borders of the self, and of language. Responding to, and at points seeming to almost visibly shiver with a sense of world anxiety, the work also offers a form of antidote: that one might turn inwards to find a place of escape, or rest, or nourishment.

Ngā mihi nui ki a Movement Art Practice for their support of this project.

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“ㅁ: every mouthful a comma or period”  was a one-night-only installation at MAP Studio on 1/SEP/2023; listen to the interview with Min-Young and Abby Cunnane here