Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Korean-American Writer, Performer, and Visual Artist
Born: March 4, 1951, Busan, South Korea
Died: November 5, 1982, New York, NY
“A Korean American Artist Who Grappled with Losing Her Voice and Roots” by Abe Ahn
“The Radical Afterlives of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha” by Mayukh Sen
Dictee, 1982“A genre-bending poetry novel focusing on how several women are linked by their struggles and the ways that their lives were affected by their nations”
Life Mixing, performance, University Art Museum, 1975.
Aveugle Voix, performance, 63 Bluxome Street Gallery, 1975.
Other Things Seen, Other Things Heard
performance, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1978.
"The main body of my work is with language, looking for the roots of language before it is born on the tip of the tongue. Since having been forced to learn languages more ‘consciously’ at a later age, there has existed a different perception and orientation toward language. Certain areas that continue to hold interest for me are: grammatical structures of a language, syntax, how words and meaning are constructed in the language system itself, by function or usage, and how transformation is brought about through manipulation, process as changing the syntax, isolation, removing from context, repetition, and reduction to minimal units." -Cha, 1976
A Ble Wail, solo performance, Worth Ryder Gallery, 1975.
All original work’s photography courtesy Trip Callaghan
Mouth to Mouth, 1975.
Black and white video, sound, 8 min
Black and white video, sound, 8 min
Avant Dictee, installed at BAMPFA
Passages Paysages, 1978.
Installed at PEER art gallery, UK
Installed at PEER art gallery, UK