Woojin Kim: ‘The Person Who Can Wear This Golden Shoe’
WooJin Kim, The Person Who Can Wear This Golden Shoe, 2021. Single-channel FHD video, stereo sound, 13 min 13 sec. All rights reserved by the artist
About the Work
WooJin Kim explores languages as social constructs, focussing on endangered Asian languages. The Person Who Can Wear This Golden Shoe addresses the near-extinct Ainu language and revival efforts. The film is based on seven unanswered emails from a narrator investigating disappearing Asian languages, sent to Ainu language stakeholders. These emails, while discussing Ainu, relate to other Asian languages in similar social contexts. The film’s structure draws from Cinderella-type folktales, which exist in over 500 versions worldwide. Historically, folktales positioned people within societal frameworks, akin to how learning a language situates individuals within a society.
About the Artist
Woojin Kim (b. 1976; based in Gyeonggi-do, South Korea) is an artist whose works and projects begin as small social observations, expanding to the questions they prompt, and how these work secretly within individuals in everyday life. Kim seeks to rupture firm belief systems, such as ‘good/bad’ or ‘true/false’. Recent exhibitions include Tokyo Art Space Hongo (2024); Ansan Cultural Foundation, Ansan (2022); and Alternative Space LOOP (2019).
About EMAP x FRIEZE FILM SEOUL
For the third year in a row, Frieze Film returns to Frieze Seoul 2024. This year’s programme is presented in partnership with Ewha Media Art Presentation (EMAP) and on view from 2 – 6 September at Ewha Womans University and online at frieze.com.
Curated by Joowon Park and Valentine Umansky, this year’s programme is titled ‘All that Weaves the Universe: Of Quantum Entanglements’. It brings together time-based media works of 37 international artists, unfolding under 8 chapters.
