Continuing the exchanges it has developed with Asia since 2024 (Planned Accidents, Unit Academia, City Sonic Seoul), and more particularly with South Korea and Japan, Transcultures is pleased to welcome South Korean sound artist, composer and performer Jo Seon Ah. At the Hautrage Convent, she will undertake several weeks of research and creation focusing on the relationships between the body, the gayageum, gesture and the sound environment.
Jo Seon-Ah (Kr)
A multidisciplinary artist, composer, performer and gayageum player based in Seoul, Jo Seon Ah studied traditional Korean music at the Korea National University of Arts. Her practice lies at the intersection of experimental music, performance, choreographic movement and sound installation.
At the core of her work is the relationship between the performer’s body and the gayageum, a traditional Korean plucked-string instrument. Rather than considering the instrument as a simple tool or an extension of the body, she approaches the two as a single entity. The gestures required to produce sound—movements of the fingers, arms, torso and legs—thus become choreographic and spatial materials in their own right. The body functions as a site in which sound resides, circulates and transforms.
Her work also examines the representations associated with the female body in traditional Korean arts, particularly the expected image of the elegant and docile female musician entrusted with preserving tradition. Rather than abandoning this tradition, she seeks to move through it, displace it and turn it into a contemporary practice capable of generating new forms of freedom, community and relationship.
This research also has a strong ecological dimension. Jo Seon Ah works with field recordings, air movements, natural acoustic resonances and relationships between human and non-human beings. In some installations, for example, she uses the airflow produced by a fan to make the body of the gayageum vibrate, creating an unstable sound that no longer depends solely on the performer’s deliberate actions.
Jo Seon Ah has presented her performances, installations and creations at numerous venues and events in South Korea, including Indie Art Hall GONG, Oil Tank Culture Park, Gyeongbokgung Palace, Thila Ground, East Atelier Gallery, Post Territory Ujeongguk, Nodeul Gallery 2, KOTE and Windmill, mainly in Seoul (KR), as well as at the Chuncheon Mime Festival in Chuncheon (KR) and the Jeonju International Film Festival in Jeonju (KR). Her work has also been presented at the Korean Cultural Center New York in New York (US) as part of Creatives in Motion. She has participated in programmes and festivals including City Sonic Seoul, Planned Accidents, Unit Academia, the Seoul Fringe Festival, STEP by SPAF and the Royal Culture Festival.
Informations
- 07.07 > 12.08.2026 |
- Couvant d’Hautrage
- 6 Place d’Hautrage 7334 Saint-Gishlain
Production
- Transcultures
- Avec le soutien de Planned Accidents (Kr)
