Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s oeuvre is united by a prevailing focus on displacement, be it cultural, geographical, or social. Throughout her performances, artist books, concrete poetry, film, video, sculpture, mail art, audio, and slide projections, Cha contends with the physical and emotional inbetweenness of migration by addressing and blurring fixed systems of nationality, religion, family, and syntax—and therefore the self. The visual and sonic shifts and juxtapositions in language and time that she creates invoke liminal spaces which redraw maps for the indeterminate identities of the displaced. In her video Mouth to Mouth, the word “mouth” appears on screen in English, followed by a series of Korean vowel graphemes and a mouth that silently forms these vowels. With its images blurred and sound muffled, this work renders the physical act of speaking difficult and incomplete, echoing experiences of colonization and displacement. The Korean language thus serves as a mother tongue that links the affective experience of home and the feeling of national belonging, both of which have long been silenced by imperialism, war, and exile.
