109. 엄마 나라 | Mother Land

Closing out 2025 with an online premiere.

I finished my six-minute film 엄마 나라 | Mother Land in August 2023.

Weeks later, it went up as a part of a group exhibit called Han at The Culture House gallery in Washington, D.C.

This film is non-narrative¹, non-linear, sans dialogue, with first-pass live shots mixed with likewise-sketchy animation. It was realized by a series of personal catastrophes, all of which had come in quick succession: the disappearance of my mother as I had known her, the death of my father, the dissolution of a five-year relationship.

In many respects it’s a closed film. It was foremost for me: making it was one of the ways I tried to survive, and the process allowed me to be with what I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to hold at the time. Many would be nonplussed by it, especially without context. It would most certainly be difficult to curate or categorize.

So when I sent it out into the festival circuit, it was with low expectations. I was struck and humbled by its world premiere at Brooklyn Film Festival in 2024. It has journeyed far from New York since, to screen at four more festivals around the world:

• Altered Images Oct 2024, London, UK

• American Documentary and Animation Film Festival Mar 2025, Palm Springs, USA

• San Diego Underground Film Festival Apr 2025, USA

• Thessaloniki Animation Film Festival (special screening) Nov 2025, Greece

Now, it is returning home.

As I close out 2025 and quietly make the film available online, I find myself a different person, of a different life. As I welcome it back, I see that it has changed, too.

ARTIST STATEMENT

엄마 나라 | Mother Land, 2023
Watercolor on paper, digital, phonotrope
Animated and shot footage, 6 min

The “phonotrope” is a simple looping animation that comes to life on a turntable. It invites a meditative regard, while simultaneously establishing remove—the animations cannot be seen with the naked eye.

In 2022, the mother I knew disappeared, suffering from depression and the strain of caregiving for almost a decade. A slow burn over summer and fall months exploded over three days in which my mother was involuntarily committed, and my father died. This six minute film, consisting primarily of hand-painted and filmed animations, is a way for me to be present with the raw, intense, and inexpressible in a way that feels both honoring and tender. The months-long process of making it has helped me see what I can’t yet look at directly.

The film is also an exploration of what I believe are parallels of longing: traumatic reverberations in an historical, cultural, and national—as well as the personal and familial—context. As I deliver this film, I find myself confronted with difficult emotions around hidden labor and the price it exacts from Korean women across generations. Legacies of absence and division further complicate how I feel.

Much of the footage is shot with an iPhone and macro lens attachment, held 1 inch away from images spinning 45 revolutions per minute. Inherent repetition in the medium leads to stillness in attention, while the way it forces fragmentation of narrative, underscores realities of fracture.

The film’s loose structure is inspired by salpuri, a traditional Korean shamanic dance of “exorcism.” It’s often referred to as an expression of han, which can be thought of as deep sadness in the context of Korean culture and history. It begins slowly, speeds up, then slows down again, returning physically to where it began—but transitioning spiritually beyond.

1. Synonym for “experimental,” meaning that the film is without traditional storyline, characters, or plot.