AV Festival: Jeamin Cha

AV Festival is a contemporary arts organisation based in Newcastle whose main activity is the delivery of its biennial Festival. In 2018, AV Festival collaborated with the Korean Cultural Centre UK to present the UK premiere of a three-screen installation Twelve (2016) by a young Korean artist Jeamin Cha (b. 1986)

The South Korean Minimum Wage Commission is an entity that negotiates and decides the next year’s minimum wage. Established in 1978, the commission’s meetings have always been held behind closed doors. We can only assume and imagine the discussion at the previous year’s meeting to find out how the current year’s minimum wage was decided. To understand a decision about the present, we have to look back to a past meeting where the future wage was negotiated.

The three-channel video installation Twelve is based on the content of the 2015 meeting with reference to various documents. Twelve characters represent the twelve times of the meeting. In addition, a sequentially operating, repetitive machine movement is juxtaposed with the meeting scenes. The work emphasizes the fact that what is called a formal, public and human discussion is being held only behind closed doors or in a private space, while simultaneously questioning what the future of a nation and its democracy should be.

AV Festival is a biennial festival of visual art and film in that takes place across ten venues in Newcastle and Gateshead. AV Festival 2018 presented work by 21 artists and filmmakers in response to the festival theme Meanwhile, what about Socialism? curated by Rebecca Shatwell.

Produced by AV Festival in partnership with the Korean Cultural Centre UK.