Sujin Lee

Lean on Me
video

Originally from South Korea, I came to the U.S. about nine years ago. The experience of learning a new language forced me to contend with the gaps and disconnections between my attempt to speak and what came out as meaning, particularly the gaps created between my body and my spoken language. Therefore, I became very interested in the physical act of speaking language, translating spoken text into written text and vice versa, and the places of un-synchronicity or imperfection that result.

My work’s primary concerns are the desire for fluency, the voice (both human and mechanical, imaginary and “real”), and language as misrepresentation, especially through dubbing, captioning, naming and the juxtaposition of text and images. My goal as an artist is to address language as a main space where struggles and violence are performed within cultures, individuals, and communities.

© Sujin Lee