Soaring birds and the sound of crashing waves currently engulf the Carleton University Art Gallery, housing Jin-me Yoon’s exhibit, Dreaming Birds, Becoming Crane.
Launched on Sept. 17, Yoon’s exhibit draws on themes of identity and colonialism through the lens of a bird. Through this perspective, the bird’s freedom glides over political barriers imposed on land, such as borders and human conflict.
The Scotiabank Photography Award winner focused on two sites for Dreaming Birds, Becoming Crane: the demilitarized zone between the Republic of Korea and North Korea and the Maplewood Flats, which lay within the unceded ancestral territory of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in Vancouver. The exhibit was composed primarily of photography and film videography.
Both places are resting points for migratory birds and have been significantly impacted by industrialization.
“I wanted to think about birds and cranes, which are [symbols] of longevity, and the longevity of our cultural division,” Yoon said. “It’s about reinventing tradition in a new context.”
She said she believes humans have to think about orientations of place and relationships with themselves and others beyond borders.
Entering the gallery, a large video is projected on an entire wall showing old 1990s VHS footage of bird sanctuaries in the demilitarized zone, obtained from an ornithologist — someone who studies birds — in North Korea.
This footage is interwoven with recent film of birds in the Maplewood Flats.
The protagonist of the film, the ornithologist, is separated from his family across a border, symbolized through the bird footage. Yoon said she embraced the poetic nature of the degraded film quality.
“It’s also thinking about the way birds have no borders and boundaries, taking our cues from birds but also our own respective traditions [and] ancestry,” Yoon said. “We can embrace where we are in a very fluid way but also carry those traditions with us.”
In the photograph, the pair share stories of displacement and dispossession based on their experiences in their respective colonized cultures. Yoon calls it “a picture of intimacy” and invites her audience to listen to the stories emerging from the photo.
Exhibit co-curator Heather Anderson invited Yoon back for an in-person exhibition after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown moved her previous exhibit, Here Elsewhere Other Hauntings (an experiment in pandemic times), online in 2021.
“This show was a dream to work on with [Yoon],” Anderson said. “We can hear this soundtrack, this kind of meditative music. The sound in the video is taken from a found VHS video that was smuggled out of the Republic of Korea and had this classical soundtrack, [which] Jin-me Yoon played backwards.”
Anderson encouraged the Carleton community to explore the “expansive, thoughtful experience,” following the sound into the gallery.
Another unique feature of Dreaming Birds, Becoming Crane is the installation of a billboard on the corner of Somerset and Preston streets. In the handwriting of Yoon’s deceased father, the word “FRAGILE” is written in both Korean and English.
Yoon said the billboard expands on the need for care, whether it’s for the earth, security amid conflict or the housing crisis.
Yannick Kazadi, a fourth-year computer science student at Carleton, said Dreaming Birds, Becoming Crane feels serene and calm, pointing to the exhibit’s emphasis on water elements. After wandering around campus, he said he stumbled upon the gallery and subsequently Yoon’s exhibit.
“[What drew me] were the colours and the water,” Kazadi said. “I like the openness of it, it’s calming. These are really interesting pieces.”
Dreaming Birds, Becoming Crane is available until Dec. 10 with free admission.
Featured image by Sadeen Mohsen/the Charlatan.
