3-channel video installation, 17 min. Korean.
Filmed in locations such as Chernobyl, Buchenwald memorial, Yubari, Japan, massacre sites in South Korea, and the Wéris megaliths in Belgium, Sanghee Song’s new work Come Back Alive Baby deals with the end of the world, salvation, with the apocalyptic condition, but also with the energy of new formation.
It is based on the Korean folktale of “Baby Commander,” a story of an extraordinary baby that was murdered by its parents, by neighbors, and by soldiers, but always revived itself from its grave. Repeating the baby’s birth-murder revival the film follows the structure of this folktale. Through video, drawing, and text, Song presents variations of a new life force rising even from extreme situations of despair and extinction, such as one in which individuals are sacrificed for the stability of a country or a group; a great famine and the bankruptcy of a local government; or ruins due to the worst nuclear power plant accident in history.
Sanghee Song, born in Seoul, South Korea, participated in the artist residency program Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten between 2006 and 2007 and has been based in Amsterdam ever since. Her works start by assuaging the soundless death of those who have absolutely nothing in this world. Through her works, the artist captures those who have been shunned and excluded by symbolic violence as well as the nameless beings that have constantly existed in different appearances over the years. She calls them to the complex time and space of the past and present through a narrative context that has been solidified through music, video, drawing, text, and performance. Her work has been widely and internationally exhibited.
