Only when we stop believing in the absoluteness of power, even our own, in relation to others can we confront power.

—Estelle Hoy, Braided Exigencies

‍

Shim Cheong. Next to the things that are natural, she owes her very existence to a prayer. A scandalous disavowal, if nothing else. But her parents-to-be were well behaved, so asking for a little recompense never seemed like the worst move in the world. It was a Tuesday night, and visual conceptions of mercurial eyes, toothless gums, and thoughts of taking up the sacred task, which is about the same as their neighbours, bred like babies. Rabbits maybe. “Fuck a duck,” they definitely didn’t say. But desire is pretty invasive. Unfortunately they’re moored to a future that will never come. At least not in the way they’d imagined. If I am going to tell the truth, it seemed like too much pressure to begin with. Like when I took my driving test the morning of my 17th birthday, nothing good happened then either. Yet when they’d looked at each other (he’s blind), at the empty chairs around the table, the manger, something kicked, if my friend’s version is to be believed, in Gwak ssi’s gut.

‍

‍

The story continues with Lady Gwak’s death. During childbirth, of all places. Which meant Shim Hak Kyu (or blind man Shim depending on preference) spent the next few months begging for breast milk and changing diapers in the dark, which is a show of love if nothing else. The tone of my interpreter giving off devotion and damage control. Anyways, Shim Cheong is indebted. And Buddha’s back in the frame, present through a disciple, demanding 300 seoks of rice in exchange for her father’s sight. “You’re on, she said, I’ll take the gig.” Under pressure or filial piety’s heavy heavy weight, Shim Cheong sells herself for the rice. And by herself, I mean us all. After all, we’re talking duty to one’s elders. Teaching daughters to be subordinate, etc. Before sacrificing herself to the God of the sea, as the story goes, jumping into the water at Indangsu.

“Ga” means song, or tale, I’m told. So Shim Cheong’s can be spun any way you please. Why are we so dead-set on things staying the same anyways. Knowing this, Mira Mann’s spread the pansori tale on its backside. Subtracted the Confucian ideology, too. In mother may recall another, from 2022, I find a wholesale reinvention of Shim Cheong-ga that I didn’t perceive the year before at N/A, despite the moths, my favourite insect (?), an image of transition, a harbinger, maybe.

‍

‍

mother may recall another comprises Sol-i So’s rendition of the pansori song accompanied by various embodiments of its heroine. Through a series of intimate shots, Mann reconstructs the tale of Shim Cheong, recalling some of the ideas but scratching out most of those that are no longer legible, persuading the viewer with a new narrative: entangling their mother’s stories in the pansori tale, Mann is re-exploring objectified characters–bondage slaves either born into the role through a Kisaeng mother or sold by their families. To be exact.

A visit to the Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst in Köln made clear what they already knew to be true. Asian femininity is fetishised. Contained. And, well, buried deep in disasters that have already happened: Shim Cheong’s sincere but also blank character is not bad writing, by any means. It is a signifier of our ability to walk all over her. Meaning it’s a short step for me to imagine the artist, à la Leslie Feinberg in Stone Butch Blues, is trying to imagine a world worth living in.

‍

‍

‍

‍

Mira Mann works transdisciplinary in the fields of poetry, music and performance. She deals with sex, illness, motherhood and violence in a radically personal way. In her work, she makes common role clichés and social attributions resonate and creates connections between actors from a wide range of genres, consciously crossing the boundaries of so-called high- and subculture. Mira Mann lives and works in Vienna and Munich.

Robert Frost is a writer and editor of émergent.

‍