What is the Opposite of an Epiphany? Notes at a Dawning
Johanna Hedva is a Korean American writer, artist, and musician from Los Angeles. Hedva is the author of the 2024 essay collection, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom. They are also the author of the novels Your Love Is Not Good and On Hell, as well as Minerva the Miscarriage of the Brain, a collection of poems, performances, and essays. Their artwork has been shown in Berlin at Gropius Bau and Haus der Kulturen der Welt; in Los Angeles at JOAN and in the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time; in London at TINA Gallery, Camden Arts Centre, and The Institute of Contemporary Arts; in New York City at Amant Foundation and Performance Space New York; in South Korea at Seoul Museum of Art and Gyeongnam Art Museum; the 14th Shanghai Biennial; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zürich; and in the Transmediale, Unsound, Rewire, and Creepy Teepee Festivals. Their albums are Black Moon Lilith in Pisces in the 4th House (2021) and The Sun and the Moon (2019). Their writing has appeared in Triple Canopy, frieze, The White Review, Topical Cream, and is anthologized in Whitechapel: Documents of Contemporary Art. Their essay “Sick Woman Theory,” published in 2016, has been translated into 11 languages.
Research Title What is the Opposite of an Epiphany? Notes at a Dawning
Category Essay
Edition The 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale
Author Johanna Hedva
The English version of this essay can be found in e-flux journal #156, a special issue for the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale Séance: Technology of the Spirit.
Link: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/156/6776766/what-is-the-opposite-of-an-epiphany-notes-at-a-dawning
It will also be available on this SMB website from mid-October.
This essay is originally commissioned for the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale Catalogue, Séance: Technology of the Spirit (Seoul: Seoul Museum of Art, Mediabus, 2025), scheduled for publication on October, 2025. With the author’s consent, it is being published in advance on the Seoul Mediacity Biennale website and e-flux Journal. No part of this essay may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, Seoul Museum of Art and Mediabus, Seoul.
© 2025 the author, copyright holders, Seoul Museum of Art and Mediabus, Seoul.
