Cecilia Kim

Sandcastles; English Lessons on Hospitalization

Sandcastles and English Lessons on Hospitalization form a body of work that explores how language fails, or fulfils, its function as a communication tool. Kim examines how language perpetuates thoughts, interactions, and systems of power. In Sandcastles, Kim’s mother narrates the text in her native tongue. The spoken Korean communicates emotional overtures, while the verse “I am exasperated by my own silence” illustrates the struggle of speaking both a foreign language and within a native tongue--words are caught in the air. English Lessons on Hospitalization derives from paired recordings cast as English lessons. The artist assumes the role of a tutor, correcting sentences as the ‘student’ recounts his past experience in a psychiatric ward following his suicide attempt. The language undergoes two translations—from thought to speech, and then to the ‘corrected’ version. What is lost through translation, and how do we succumb to the English language?

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