Humans, who have caused the climate crisis, are accelerating not only the extinction of endangered wildlife but also minority languages that contain private life, culture, history, and worldviews. Even without mentioning grand discourses like globalization or post-postcolonialism, we are bearing the dissatisfaction, frustration, and anxiety about the current global village that is causing these extinctions. Through this exhibition “Voiceless Voice,” Woojin Kim cautiously urges for global communication and broadened understanding through diverse languages. This exhibition marks the completion of one chapter of the “Memories Project” concerning the disappearance of languages and holds significance as a step toward expanding into a new chapter. Since beginning this project, Kim has tried to doubt herself and carefully think from outward world to avoid being consumed by ideology. Her efforts can be glimpsed through the mind map and “Collapsing Sign” in this exhibition, and are revealed through the “Beginning of a Perfect Ending” series, which archives interview materials along with networks of ideas. Additionally, by transforming the exhibition space into a theater with lowered curtains, she sequentially screens three works: “Korean Dictation Test_You Will Have to Answer Questions What You Hear (2-channel version),” “And I Decided to Make a Short Play_Part U” (hereafter “Part U”), and “The Ghost, Sea and Möbius Loop.”

The actors playing the role of guests enter a stage set with tea and refreshments. The host, artist Woojin Kim, presents the actors with a script written in a Q&A format, based on various materials and interview content. She has collected while tracking the disappearance of Uchinaguchi, the indigenous language of Okinawa, Japan. In the filmed footage, the guests appear in an unfamiliar frame showing only their bodies below the head, appearing as anonymous figures who could be anyone or no one, including oneself. In contrast, the speaker is not an actor but is replaced by the actual voices of interview subjects who have memories of Uchinaguchi, drawing out vivid collective memories of the ideological oppression and discrimination along with the process of language extinction. As the interview progresses, the video gradually transitions to black and white, becoming completely monochrome when describing the death of Uchinaguchi. While the video’s narrative adopts a theatrical format on the surface, it remains intuitive and factual as the interview content, speaker’s voice, and language are based on memories of real events. Finally, Kim asks the guests, “Please tell me about your day in Uchinaguchi.” The spoken responses, which cannot be translated by AI translators, are shown only as phonetic values, and with this, the new video work “Part U” concludes.

In “Part U,” Okinawa, which serves as the setting for these events, was annexed by Japan in the 19th century and suffered discrimination and disregard while being forced to adopt Japanese language and culture during Japan’s nation-building process. During the Pacific War in 1945, it was used as a battlefield, resulting in numerous civilian casualties. After World War II, it endured exploitation and destruction under American occupation, and even after its return to Japan in 1972, it continues to bear a painful history of military base crimes and environmental destruction. Particularly during this period, tragedies such as language suppression, indiscriminate killing, and forced mass deaths occurred between Japan and USA. At this point, we might experience a sense of déjà vu. We might be reminded of the process of the Jeju dialect’s extinction alongside the tragic Jeju April 3 Incident in a society dominated by blind national ideology. Kim maximized the narrative by using visual language showing Jeju haenyeo (female divers) and their unique occupational culture, along with the disappearance of the Jeju dialect, depicted through the gradual fade-out of the divers one by one. Kim observes the control and extinction of the Hong Kong language under ideology as representation of imaginary relationships in Hong Kong, another East Asian region. As a future project, Kim tracks digitally endangered languages while raising awareness about the negative issues arising from the reduction in language diversity. According to Woojin Kim, “Research papers indicate that while there are over 7,000 languages worldwide, only a very small number have been successfully digitized or are in the process of being digitized. While people acquire and use powerful languages to gain information, languages that fail to digitize are accelerating towards extinction in the real world, and meaningful digital information written in minority languages is also disappearing.”

“Part U” is a new 2-channel video work, with the first half beginning with verses that read like Kim’s monologue while scanning the streets of Okinawa. By symbolizing the unique culture and intellectual history that disappeared along with language extinction as “a play with a big hole running through it,” it seems to urge action for recognition and interest as a common sense of responsibility that those who couldn’t speak and didn’t know must feel deeply. Although the field research and archiving process of finding relevant interviewees and selecting Asian region locations while facing the challenge of oral language extinction was arduous, the accumulated information drives Kim to actively show intention and confidence, and to take action with emotional similarity of affect. Kim arranges one side of the video as a theater stage and the other side so that the audience can read the script in the teleprompter format, cross-editing how the event of language extinction intersects with theatrical fiction-like facts. He mentions using AI translators (ChatGPT 3.5, DeepL, Papago, Google Translator) throughout the entire project to visually express the disappearance of specific languages in the digital process. “In the preparation process, languages acknowledged to be facing extinction, such as Ainu, Uchinaguchi, and Jeju dialect, are at the stage of beginning social preservation efforts and restoration work. Due to ongoing digitization efforts, albeit limited, AI systems can recognize at least the existence of these languages, however minimally.” (from the artist’s note)

Woojin Kim has been conducting the “Memories Project,” focusing on how a nation, society, or ethnic group forces language in the private and daily spheres, especially in schools or home education, as ideological devices for maintaining power and systems. While participating in residency programs across Asia, she has continued to conduct various interviews and research about similar social phenomena occurring in these regions, along with the disappearance of languages. “Throughout my process of researching Ainu and Uchinaguchi, and further collecting interviews about Jeju dialect and other Asian languages, I constantly questioned whether I could truly understand their stories, histories, and current situations. By revealing the structure of theater and stage, I aimed to show how limited our perceived understanding of the world is, and how unaware we are of the vast realm that lies beyond it. Due to such ignorance or indifference, certain worlds are disappearing.” (from the artist’s note)