Jayoung Chung is a multi-media artist: primarily a visual artist, but also a musician, animator, filmmaker and storyteller. She has had numerous exhibits and installations utilizing nearly every form of media, including performance, film, computer graphics, sound and movement. Her work has been exhibited worldwide in both solo and group shows. Her work is based on the symbiosis of art and technology, using her awareness of the natural world as a gateway to explore “Empathy.” Ocean waves and symbols of passing seasons have emerged as one of her central artistic themes, a metaphor for the circularity of time. In 2013, she was the Moving Image Director at the Special Olympics Winter Games Opening Ceremony.
She has been awarded residencies at Eyebeam, Bemis Center For Contemporary Arts, ZK/U in Berlin, Watermill Center which is run by Robert wilson, Yaddo fellowship, Edrawd Albee, Swing Space at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), Culturehub I-Park Foundation and an AHL residency. She received an MPS from ITP at the Tisch School of Arts in New York University in 2010, as well as BFAs from Seoul National University in 2005 and Ewha Woman’s University in 2003 in South Korea.
The project Empathy will be an experimental, multimedia dance-performance that illustrates the story based on Buber’s philosophy of engaging with each other and the world. The piece, supplemented with instrumental music and graphic images, will also incorporate audience participation. It will be divided in ten different scenes and four Knee Plays (Robert Wilson’s creative way to joint scenes). Throughout the piece, One and Two will demonstrate the turning points in which they eventually learn about each other. Thus, their evolving relationship will convey positive and exciting emotions, tinged with moments of sadness.
Using literal definition of empathy: “putting oneself in someone else’s shoes”, the piece will end with an open-structured scene, allowing the audience to physically interact with the work. The main performer will hold hands with each individual (who is asked to take off his or her shoes and wear conductive shoes on to the stage). This physical interaction will create sounds and images based on the electricity generated in between performer and participant, resulting in living stories that break silence and engender empathy. Through the piece, Chung’s goal is to share a sensation of connectivity and empathy with her audience.
“When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly,
God is the electricity that surges between them.”
― Martin Buber [Ich und Du]
In Process @ The Watermill Center invites the community to engage with our Artists-in-Residence on Saturday afternoons through open rehearsals, workshops, studio visits, lectures or artist talks.
Watermill’s mission is to provide artists and thinkers the opportunity to focus on the development of their work and practice. Artists-in-Residence have gone on to perform at venues and festivals including the New Museum, Roulette, PS122, American Realness, Clocktower Gallery, Performa, Vienna’s Donaufestival, Kampnagel in Hamburg, CPR – Center for Performance Research, and the Baryshnikov Arts Center.
March 3, 2018
photos © Maria Baranova-Suzuki
