CHRISTINE SUN KIM & THOMAS MADER

Since 2013, Christine Sun Kim (b.1980) and Thomas Mader (b.1984) have collaborated on a joint practice that addresses the complexity of communication in a variety of formats. Contrary to Sun Kim, Mader is hearing, and the couple has made a series of video works that grapple with the more intimate questions of communication across languages and cultures, and the divide between deaf and hearing worlds.

When Christine Sun Kim was a kid, she had to play a voice-controlled video game during speech therapy sessions. In this game, she would keep a balloon afloat by making speech sounds, the “correctness” of which was determined by the computer software. These corrective therapy sessions have left long-lasting and unpleasant memories for many deaf people.

In the video work, HooHaa, Kim and Mader follow the video game lead as well as the themes of air flow and temperature. The human body is a machine that is constantly burning calories to maintain its temperature. Yet what comes out of its windpipe depends on the position of the throat and lips. Go “Hoo” and the air escaping your mouth will be cold, go “Haa” and it will be warm. Breathe “Haa” on a mirror, and the condensation will stick, breathe “Hoo” and you can blow the condensation away again. As in previous works, Kim and Mader use seemingly simple games and observations about the body in order to connect to the complex larger theme of signed and spoken languages, and to seek out the playful and creative potential in words and grammar.

About the artists

Christine Sun Kim was born in California, USA, in 1980 and lives in Berlin. She uses the medium of sound in performance and drawing to investigate her relationship with spoken language and the aural environment.

Thomas Mader was born in southern Germany in 1984 and lives in Berlin. He is a research-based artist who works with themes related to national identity, storytelling and communication.

Selected group exhibitions include Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo; Galerie Crone, Vienna; Ian Potter Museum, Melbourne; Times Art Center, Berlin; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Nuit Blanche, Toronto; and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. Their solo exhibitions include the Buffalo AKG Art Museum in Buffalo, New York; Museum for Contemporary Art, Siegen; and Kunstraum, Munich.

LIFE ANXIETY

The work is shown as part of the exhibition, LIVSANGST (LIFE ANXIETY), a comprehensive thematic exhibition that brings new perspectives on art and well-being, anxiety, healing, and care.

LIFE ANXIETY is the first exhibition in a comprehensive two-year joint grant from The Obel Family Foundation and the Augustinus Foundation. In addition, the exhibition is supported by the AP Møller Foundation and the Beckett Foundation.