Yaloo in Residence

Description:

While in residence at Western Front, Yaloo developed the virtual reality component of her multimedia installation Garden of Seaweed (2019). Seaweed functions as a recurring theme in Yaloo’s practice to investigate signifiers of Korean culture in relation to desire, extraction, fandom, consumerism, beauty industries, and contemporary spirituality. Through interdisciplinary collaborations, her translation of this motif across sculpture, video, sound, fashion, and installation reflects on her own diasporic experience of navigating hybrid cultural identities. 

Garden of Seaweed also focuses on the global phenomenon of Korean pop music and idol culture, specifically around the South Korean boyband BTS. Yaloo collaborated with Frances Amelia Agbanyani and Kim Gelera from the Vancouver-based K-pop cover dance group Yours Truly to recreate the choreography from the music video for BTS’s song “IDOL” (2018).  With support from virtual reality technicians Jonny Ostrem, Ian Lavery, and Madeleine Francis, Yaloo worked with the Integrated Motion Studio at Emily Carr University of Art + Design to animate the dancers as seaweed avatars.

Public events during Yaloo’s residency included a screening and conversation with local animators Howie Tsui and Lianne Zannier, moderated by Western Front media arts curator Allison Collins; and a talk with Seoul-based curator Soojung Yi. 

Yaloo’s residency was presented as part of Particles: Seoul to Vancouver, a program of exchange between artists, curators, and institutions in Seoul, South Korea and Vancouver, Canada; produced in partnership with grunt gallery, and the Banff Centre for the Arts, and in collaboration with Pacific Crossings. Financial support for this program was provided by the Province of British Columbia through the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, and Culture.