BANANAPOWER, Gwangju Biennale 2006 http://search.hankooki.com/times/times_view.php?term=gwangju+biennale++&path=hankooki3/times/lpage/culture/200609/k
“BANANA POWER” for Art, Society
By Seo Dong-shin
Staff Reporter
Jette Hye Jin Mortensen, a Korean adoptee and Danish artist, hands out a dish of baked banana to a visitor at the biennale. /Korea Times Photo by Seo Dong-shin
Visitors to the main exhibition hall of the sixth Gwangju (Kwangju) Biennale pause for a moment at the entrance. Some, shy and hesitant, ask if they could have some of the bananas piled up on the desk. More daring ones snatched a bundle and walked away.
Jette Hye Jin Mortensen, a member of Scandinavian artist/activist group UFOlab (Unidentified Foreign Object Laboratory), hands out as many bananas as she can, some baked in the oven with brown sugar, along with the yellow-white pamphlet titled ``Banana Power.''
``Baking of the bananas is a process of transformation,'' Mortensen said. ``Also, Koreans are not used to this kind of baked, sweetened bananas.''
But surely these bananas are meant to be more than what they appear _ or is it what they exactly appear to be? ``Yellow on the outside, white on the inside,'' just like Korean adoptees who were adopted and raised in white Scandinavian families. This is the message that UFOlab wants to highlight with their bananas. The group, which consists of Korean adoptee artists based in Scandinavian nations, mostly in Denmark, has installed an accompanying video clip placed inside the hall.
``As an Asian raised in a white family, he or she looks Asian, but feels white inside,'' states the video clip installed inside the exhibition hall. In it, ``Banana Power Milkshakes'' are handed out to citizens on a Copenhagen street from the table with the sign ``Now! Mixed!''
The group aims to highlight the issues relating to international adoption and the internalized racism the adoptees faced growing up in the mostly white Scandinavian nations. Unlike the prevailing portrayal of those nations as advanced socialism-based utopias, politicians in those countries do capitalize on racism, Mortensen said.
``International adoption is also about power relations,'' said Mortensen, who was born in Seoul and adopted at the age of two by a Danish family. ``I've heard that in the United States, the government is actually banning white babies from being adopted by black families. Also, there are no white babies being adopted by Korean families.''
Mortensen thinks South Korea should stop being part of international adoption, as the country is ``not so poor anymore.''
Working on the theme of international adoption helped her individually, and it also gets the issue more talked about in the society, the 26-year-old believes. Mortensen is to stay the coming six months in Seoul, where her biological father lives.
Park Hyun-mi, a volunteer at the biennale, said she liked the thought-provoking message that also resonates with her and her family.
``My father, who was a second-generation Korean living in Japan, used to be bullied by the Japanese because he was considered Korean. When he came to live in Korea, however, he was again ostracized, and his business counterparts deceived him, because they thought he was half Japanese,'' Park said. ``I think this performance has something to do with identity issue. As a third-generation Korean, I sympathize with it.''
In a broader sense, the ``Banana Power'' project tackles the diaspora issue.
``Bananas cannot grow in Europe. It used to be a symbol of something exotic and far away,'' the UFOlab states in the video. ``But it has become as ordinary as an apple or a pear, typical Scandinavian food.''
saltwall@koreatimes.co.kr
09-10-2006 17:07
By Seo Dong-shin
Staff Reporter
Jette Hye Jin Mortensen, a Korean adoptee and Danish artist, hands out a dish of baked banana to a visitor at the biennale. /Korea Times Photo by Seo Dong-shin
Visitors to the main exhibition hall of the sixth Gwangju (Kwangju) Biennale pause for a moment at the entrance. Some, shy and hesitant, ask if they could have some of the bananas piled up on the desk. More daring ones snatched a bundle and walked away.
Jette Hye Jin Mortensen, a member of Scandinavian artist/activist group UFOlab (Unidentified Foreign Object Laboratory), hands out as many bananas as she can, some baked in the oven with brown sugar, along with the yellow-white pamphlet titled ``Banana Power.''
``Baking of the bananas is a process of transformation,'' Mortensen said. ``Also, Koreans are not used to this kind of baked, sweetened bananas.''
But surely these bananas are meant to be more than what they appear _ or is it what they exactly appear to be? ``Yellow on the outside, white on the inside,'' just like Korean adoptees who were adopted and raised in white Scandinavian families. This is the message that UFOlab wants to highlight with their bananas. The group, which consists of Korean adoptee artists based in Scandinavian nations, mostly in Denmark, has installed an accompanying video clip placed inside the hall.
``As an Asian raised in a white family, he or she looks Asian, but feels white inside,'' states the video clip installed inside the exhibition hall. In it, ``Banana Power Milkshakes'' are handed out to citizens on a Copenhagen street from the table with the sign ``Now! Mixed!''
The group aims to highlight the issues relating to international adoption and the internalized racism the adoptees faced growing up in the mostly white Scandinavian nations. Unlike the prevailing portrayal of those nations as advanced socialism-based utopias, politicians in those countries do capitalize on racism, Mortensen said.
``International adoption is also about power relations,'' said Mortensen, who was born in Seoul and adopted at the age of two by a Danish family. ``I've heard that in the United States, the government is actually banning white babies from being adopted by black families. Also, there are no white babies being adopted by Korean families.''
Mortensen thinks South Korea should stop being part of international adoption, as the country is ``not so poor anymore.''
Working on the theme of international adoption helped her individually, and it also gets the issue more talked about in the society, the 26-year-old believes. Mortensen is to stay the coming six months in Seoul, where her biological father lives.
Park Hyun-mi, a volunteer at the biennale, said she liked the thought-provoking message that also resonates with her and her family.
``My father, who was a second-generation Korean living in Japan, used to be bullied by the Japanese because he was considered Korean. When he came to live in Korea, however, he was again ostracized, and his business counterparts deceived him, because they thought he was half Japanese,'' Park said. ``I think this performance has something to do with identity issue. As a third-generation Korean, I sympathize with it.''
In a broader sense, the ``Banana Power'' project tackles the diaspora issue.
``Bananas cannot grow in Europe. It used to be a symbol of something exotic and far away,'' the UFOlab states in the video. ``But it has become as ordinary as an apple or a pear, typical Scandinavian food.''
saltwall@koreatimes.co.kr
09-10-2006 17:07
posted by Anna Jh Borstam at 3:49 PM
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