siren eun young jung (Korean: 정은영, Hanja: 鄭恩瑛, Korean pronunciation: Jeong Eunyoung, born in 1974 in Incheon, South Korea) is a Korean contemporary artist working in video, performance, installation, and photography. The Seoul-based artist explores issues around gender and sexuality in relation to Korean history, politics, and culture through long-term research projects. Her work is often centered on figures or artistic practices effaced or excluded from conventional archives.

jung's work has been shown in solo exhibitions across Seoul, and she has participated in group exhibitions both in Korea and abroad. jung represented Korea in the 58th Venice Biennale together with artists Hwayeon Nam and Jane Jin Kaisen in the exhibition “History Has Failed Us, but No Matter” curated by Hyunjin Kim. jung has received a number of awards, including the Korea Artist Prize in 2018.

Education 
jung was trained as a painter for her BFA and MFA at Ewha Womans University, where she became involved in the feminist movement on campus, and began going by the name “siren eun young jung” in 1994. Part of the impetus for changing her name was her desire to remove the possibility of others determining her gender, ethnicity, and class background based on her name. After graduating with her BFA in 1997 and MFA in 2000 from Ewha, she went on to work with art historian Griselda Pollock for her MA in Feminist Theory and Practice in the Visual Arts at the University of Leeds. She completed her MA in 2004 with a thesis titled "Women Between Nation and Diaspora in the Era of Globalisation." jung then returned to Ewha to write a dissertation titled “The Politics of Gender and the Aesthetics of Dissensus: With a Focus on the Yeoseong Gukgeuk Project,” graduating in 2015 with a Doctorate in Fine Arts. Cho Duckhyun and Kim Hyunjoo supervised jung's dissertation.

Work 
Throughout her career, jung has engaged with feminist issues in her artistic practice. Her early work in video, photography, and installation often deals with gendered violence and figures on the social periphery. jung began incorporating performance into her artistic practice with her ongoing series Yeoseong Gukgeuk Project (2008-), which grapples with issues around tradition, queerness, disability, intersectionality, and archival memory and loss. jung describes her methodology as a form of assemblage, and emphasizes the need to push the boundaries of typical art practices. jung has cited a range of scholars as influences on her work, including Judith Butler, Jasbir K. Puar, and Susan Sontag.

Dongducheon Project (2007-2009) 
jung developed her Dongducheon Project (2007-9) centered on the spaces sex workers and undocumented migrants traverse in the camptowns around U.S. military bases. Her examination of the ways in which gendered bodies are interpolated in the complex legacies of Japanese colonization and U.S. militarism has continued in Yeoseong Gukgeuk Project (2008-).

Yeoseong Gukgeuk Project 여성국극 프로젝트 (2008-ongoing) 
Yeoseong Gukgeuk Project is one of jung's most well-known body of works. Yeoseong gukgeuk (Korean or National women's theater) is a traditional form of Korean theater in which women actors play all of the characters. It first emerged in the 1940s partly in response to the gendered exploitation of students by pansori masters. Yeoseong gukgeuk peaked in the 50s and 60s before fading into obscurity in the following decades. The introduction of Western theater and values more broadly in South Korea, as well as lack of institutional support that was predominately directed instead to male performers as a part of Park Chung Hee's efforts to modernize the country, led to yeoseong gukgeuk's decline in popularity.

jung was interested in a similar genre of theater in Japan called takarazuka when she was young, but did not learn about yeoseong gukgeuk until 2008. jung's engagement in the history and practice of yeoseong gukgeuk has yielded a wide array of artworks that document the lives of actors who are still alive, explore the overlap between queerness and performance, consider yeoseong gukgeuk's relationship to contemporary performance as part of a larger queer genealogy, function as an alternative archive, and challenge the parameters of visibility. Her work is a product of over a decade of research, and her direct collaboration with yeoseong gukgeuk actors in creating a visual archive consisting of transcripts, video recordings, and other materials. jung's exploration of the relationship between queerness and performance through the lens of yeoseong gukgeuk is motivated by her interest in the aesthetic qualities of queer performance rather than the queer identities of its performers. She also emphasizes that she is not seeking to revive or recreate the theater tradition through her work, and is instead focusing on the linkages it has to the present age.

Act of Affect (2013) 
This two-part work features nimai actor Nam Eunjin training in yeoseong gukgeuk. For the public performance at Atelier Hermès, Nam shifted between singing and speaking, as well as being onstage and offstage to take on different personas, confess her innermost thoughts and feelings about training in the theater tradition, and question the boundary between what is considered a proper performance in contrast to a rehearsal. The second part of the work is a 15-minute single-channel video showing Nam, in contrast to the public performance that had a full audience, alone on stage and backstage.

Anomalous Fantasy (2016-ongoing) 
This series of performances, with the first and most recent in Korea in 2016 and 2019, then Taiwan (2017), Japan (2018–19), and India (2018), is a 1-hour 25 minute stage performance featuring Nam Eunjin and an amateur gay chorus.

Deferral Theatre (2018) 
Deferral Theatre, a video shown in the 2018 "Artist of the Year" exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Korea, explores the connections between Nam Eunjin, gagok performer Park Minhee, and drag king Azangman. jung states that her juxtaposition of the three figures is meant to emphasize their need for mutual support, the generative possibilities for yeoseong gukgeuk standing outside of the scope of institutional recognition, and how the instability of queerness can allow them to "write our own history by deferring it."

A Performing by Flash, Afterimage, Velocity, and Noise (2019) 
The audio-visual installation A Performing by Flash, Afterimage, Velocity, and Noise was shown in the Korea Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale as part of the group exhibition titled "History Has Failed Us, but No Matter." The work is an extension of jung's Yeoseong Gukgeuk Project (2008-). The first part of the installation consisted of three monitors installed at the entrance of the Korean Pavilion showing yeoseong gugeuk actor Lee Deungwoo applying makeup in a theater and performing pansori. The main installation featured a single-channel video projected onto three walls in a 5 x 5 x 4 meter space. The video centers on four performers: actor Yii Lee, Azangman, director of the Disabled Women's Theater Group "Dancing Waist" Seo Jiwon, and electronic musician KIRARA. jung describes the work as an "imaginative genealogy" outside of Western epistemological structures. jung says that the title is a reference to her intentional incorporation and exaggeration of elements typically frowned upon in video art.

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions 
2006 - "The Wandering Diseases," brainfactory, Seoul

2007 - "The Passenger," Traveler's Book project, Seoul

2010 - "Rehearsal," Platform SlowRush, Songdo International city, Incheon

2015 - "Trans-Theatre," Art Space Pool, Seoul

2016 - "Wrong Indexing," Sindoh Art Gallery, Seoul

2016 - "Anomalous Fantasy (Staging)," Season Program, Namsan Art Center, Seoul

2017 - "Wrong Indexing," NTU CCA Singapore, Singapore

2018 - "foolish or mannish," d/p, Seoul

Group exhibitions 
2014 - "Tradition (Un)Realized, Arko Art Center, Seoul

2014 - "Ghosts, Spies, and Grandmothers, SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul, Seoul

2014 - 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, Brisbane

2015/2016 - "Discordant Harmony," Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima

2016 - "The 8th Climate: The 7th Gwangju Biennale," Gwangju

2018 - Taipei Biennial, Taipei

2018 - "Proregress," Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai

2014/2018 - TPAM (Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama), Yokohama

2018 - "Out of Turn," Serendipity Art Festival, Goa

2018 - "Korea Artist Prize 2018," National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul

2019 - "History Has Failed Us, but No Matter," Korea Pavilion, 58th Venice Biennale, Venice

Awards 
2013 - Hermès Foundation Missulsang Prize

2015 - Sindoh Art Prize

2018 - Korea Artist Prize

References 

1974 births
Living people
People from Incheon
Ewha Womans University alumni
21st-century South Korean artists
South Korean feminists
Alumni of the University of Leeds
South Korean contemporary artists
Performance artists
South Korean video artists
정은영(鄭恩瑛, 1974년 ~ )은 대한민국의 페미니즘 미술 작가이다. 영어이름 siren eun young jung 을 사용한다.

학력 

 1997 이화여자대학교 서양화과 졸업
 2000 이화여자대학교 일반대학원 서양화과 졸업, 석사 논문 <통로로서의 세계의 가장자리>, 지도교수 조덕현
 2004 영국 리즈대학교 대학원 시각예술에서의 여성주의 이론과 실천 졸업, 석사 논문 <전지구화 시대 조국과 이산 사이의 여성들>, 지도교수 그리젤다 폴록
 2015 이화여자대학교 일반대학원 조형예술학부 졸업, 박사 논문 <성별의 정치학과 불화의 미학:여성국극 프로젝트를 중심으로>, 지도교수 김현주, 조덕현

개인전 

 2015 전환극장, 아트스페이스 풀, 서울
 2010 시연, 플랫폼 슬로우러시, 송도 국제도시, 인천
 2007 탑승객; 여행자의 책, 서울-프랑크푸르트-마드리드-파리-런던-서울
 2006 유랑하는 병들, 브레인팩토리, 서울

그룹전 

 2018 올해의 작가전, 국립현대 미술관, 서울
 2015 불협화음의 하모니, 히로시마 미술관, 히로시마(예정)
 2015 ASIA TIME : 제 1회 광동 미술 비엔날레, 광동미술관, 광저우(예정)
 2015 동아시아 페미니즘: 판타시아, 서울시립미술관, 서울
 2015 제8회 아시아 퍼시픽 트리엔날레, QAGOMA, 브리스번(예정)
 2015 미래는 지금이다, La friche Belle de Mai, 마르세이유, 프랑스
 2014 미래는 지금이다, 로마국립현대미술관, 로마, 이탈리아
 2014 8th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, 브리스번, 호주
 2014 Traditional (Un)Realized, 아르코 미술관, 한국문화예술위원회, 서울
 2014 귀신, 간첩, 할머니: Media City Seoul 2014, 서울시립미술관, 서울
 2014 Post-Movement: Night of Café Mueller, 콴두 미술관, 타이페이, 대만
 2014 On the Border: 2014토론토 한국영화제, 토론토, 캐나다
 2014 Something in space escapes our attempts at surveying, Württembergischer Kunstverein, 슈트트가르트, 독일
 2014 커뮤니티 퍼포마티비티, 광주아시아문화마루, 광주
 2014 TPAM2014(Performing Art Meeting in Yokohama), KAAT, 요코하마, 일본
 2013 Where the Ends Meet, Gallery Houg, 리옹, 프랑스
 2013 텔미 허 스토리, 스페이스 씨, 서울
 2013 에르메스재단 미술상, 아뜰리에 에르메스, 서울
 2013 러닝머신, 백남준 아트센터, 용인
 2013 기울어진 각운들, 국제 갤러리, 서울
 2013 페스티벌 봄, 서강대학교 메리홀 소극장, 서울
 2012 플레이타임, 문화역 서울 284, 서울
 2012 언바운드 아카이브, 아르코 미술관, 서울
 2012 마지막 혁명은 없다, 캘리포니아 어바인대학 미술관, 어바인, 미국
 2012 해피윈도우, 아트센터 나비, 서울
 2012 만국박람회, 우민아트센터, 청주
 2012 여수국제아트페스티벌YIAF, 예울마루 전시관, 여수
 2012 신진기예, 토탈미술관, 서울
 2011 파산의 기술, 플랫폼 슬로우 러시, 송도국제도시, 인천
 2011 새로운 발흥지, 우민아트센터, 청주
 2011 오픈스튜디오, 경기창작센터, 안산
 2010 Perspective Strikes Back, L'appartement22, 라바트, 모로코
 2010 오픈스튜디오, 경기창작센터, 안산
 2010 유령 , Platform SlowRush #13, 송도 국제도시, 인천
 2010 Trans-media-scape, 제 12회 서울국제여성영화제, 서울
 2010 Going, 2010 Seoul LGBT Film Festival, 서울
 2009-2010 Perspective Strikes Back, 두산 갤러리, 서울
 2009 DIYforum, 서교예술실험창작공간, 서울
 2009 Emporium: A New Common Sense of Space, Museo della Scienza e della Tecnica Leonardo Da Vinci, 밀라노, 이탈리아
 2009 어떤 제안: 공공자원, 아트선재센터, 서울
 2009 언니가 돌아왔다, 경기도 미술관, 안산
 2008 Incheon Media Art Festival, 부평역사박물관, 인천
 2008 Harmony of the Crash, Zkmax, 뮌헨, 독일
 2008 기억을 위한 보행, 상상을 위한 보행, 인사아트센터, 서울
 2008 A Walk to Remember, A Walk to Envision, MUSEUM AS HUB, New Museum of Contemporary Art, 뉴욕, 미국
 2007 Neighborhood, New Museum of Contemporary Art, 뉴욕, 미국
 2007 Beyond Art Festival, 대전시립미술관, 대전
 2007 IASmedia Screening, 서울 아트 시네마, 서울
 2007 Harmony of Clash, 갤러리 세줄, 서울
 2007 Something Mr.C Can’t Have. KIAF특별전, 코엑스, 서울
 2007 A matter of Urbanity, among other things, Canal de Isabell Ⅱ, 마드리드, 스페인
 2007 Monte Video, Netherlands Media Art Institute, 암스테르담, 네덜란드
 2006 네트워크 플러스: 기억, 대안공간 풀, 서울
 2006 kkk^^;, 쌈지 스페이스, 서울
 2006 미디어스케이프, 판페스티벌, 헤이리, 파주
 2006 우표가 되려는 그림, SBS전시관, 서울
 2006 Textile & Poetry, TAD Gallery at Mi Art Fair, 밀라노, 이탈리아
 2006 일곱번째 오픈 스튜디오, 쌈지 스페이스, 서울
 2006 여기도 거기도 아닌, (주)쌈지 사옥 한뼘 갤러리,

수상 및 레지던시 
 2018 국립현대 미술관 올해의 작가상 수상
 2013 2013 에르메스재단미술상 수상
 2013-2014 세마난지 레지던시 입주작가, 서울시립미술관
 2010 제 1기 경기창작센터 입주작가, 경기문화재단
 2006 한국문화예술위원회 신진작가 지원기금 당선
 2005 브레인팩토리 전시공모 당선
 2005 제 8기 쌈지스튜디오 프로그램 입주작가
 2004 길동무 여행사; 정이주프로젝트, 오픈아트미디어 커미션 당선 (프로젝트팀 sirennix)
 2002 이머징 아티스트, 선정, 쌈지 스페이스
 2000 슬라이드 프레젠테이션, 선정, 대안공간 풀

각주

외부 링크 
 정은영 작가 홈페이지

1974년 출생
살아있는 사람
대한민국의 화가
이화여자대학교 동문
리즈 대학교 동문
대한민국의 여성주의자