‘Heterocultural Archival Sediments’ is a project that is researching the use of images and its interpretation in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s book ‘DICTEE’ (Tanam Press, New York, 1982), a subject that has been left out in the studies around Cha as little information has been available so far on the images. Despite this lack ‘DICTEE’ is a key work of the postcolonial avant-garde, and remains groundbreaking even today in its plea for the voicing of a neglected, layered, colonized and gendered experience.
In a second step the described images’ travel will be linked to the embedded journeys on a real and symbolic level within the text itself. The experience of exile, the lost and untold memory, the search and pursue of its uncovery, will be placed in connection to the images’ provenance and representation.
‘Heterocultural Archival Sediments’ follows up on the research project ‘Silent Sisters / Stille Schwestern’ (2016-2017).
Image:
Left: Fragment of 'Yellow Fresco Panel with Muse', Boscoreale, Vesuvius, Italy, A.D. 1–79, Fresco, 63.2 × 40 × 4.3 cm, Paul Getty Museum, Malibu
Right: ‘DICTEE’, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Tanam Press, New York, 1982, page 138
