The hand-drawn, stop-motion animation of Ungnyeo is made and produced by me as part of the entirety of the multi-disciplinary art installation of The Body That Hums: Ungnyeo’s Cave. This performative and transformable project is inspired from the Korean myth of the revived bear woman, named Ung-nyeo. The rebirth of Ungnyeo‘s body that branches out in many directions as imagined limbs. Her imagined body (land-territory) contains a huge cave; a playful sonic and tactile space, opened to the public welcoming from children to adults. This cave, in puzzling yet calm, can turn into a cheerful and creative playground for children and an itinerary cinema-space to screen the animation of Ungnyeo and my previous moving-image video arts, as well as other independent films. The transformable cave alters into a fun space holding a mini-festival in a tribute to the film, Cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore. The Ungnyeo‘s body resonates a temporality, disassembly, locality and mobility in a care of relational materiality: this project is built with recycling materials: used clothing buttons, bottle caps, abandoned chairs, used-gym balls, recycled textiles and various free stationery.

The multidisciplinary installation of The Body That Hums, Ungnyeo‘s Cave, inspired by the Korean myth of the bear woman named Ungnyeo, is a series of performative and interactive installation. This ‘outdoor’ installation was initiated and embarked with the invitation from “ImagineLand Festival of NDG.” The first installation piece of Ungnyeo appeared in the public on June 2018 on the streets of NDG. The next piece was composed of different shapes and structures, and exhibited in Hamstead Park, August 2018. The third was presented in the form of a workshop as part of a pop-up collective art exhibition, which was in collaboration with the Ruche d’art de la bibliothèque Mordecai-Richler in Mile-End in Montreal, October 2018.

“The Body That Hums, Ungnyeo‘s Cave” is my on-going research-creation project which experiments with a variant experience that unfolds, at least, the double fold time and space exploring an ephemeral and perpetual territory (land) through the myth of Ungnyeo. In the use of recycling materials of this gigantic statue, Ungnyeo‘s body takes place in an outdoor space expressing a qualitative experience of temporality in life within our nature and culture. It is of mixed medias; textile design and performing art, and visual and media art including the stop-motion animation of Ungnyeo. Drawing, Painting and Animation by Mi-Jeong Lee.

The series of stop-motion animations “Ung-Nyeo” are made as part of this project (the version of September 2018)

The first draft of Ung-Nyeo’s animation series (July 2018)

The Process of Making

**Breathing through and with, “Ungnyeo”**

1. Sewing Collective

This project called for a grass-roots sewing collective that is composed of Korean-Canadians, aVietnamise-Canadian and Quebecois. The sewing activity used to be regarded as an useless house-chore for women. This project revives its innate quality that is invaluable. In this sense, the ephemeral sewing collective is composed of eight women artists who are between the age of 40-60. The participated artists are: Sara Say, Pandora Hobby, Kim Hong-Sook, Ka Kyung-Sook, Wang Young-Sook, Jang Ki-Soon.

2. Visual and Media Collective

Once this project’s concept was fabricated, the first production began to modulate this gigantic Ungnyeo’s statue concerning an outdoor location. 3 D modulation was played in various times; how to stand it to be seen well by the public at the ImaginedLand Festival in NDG. 3D modulation artist: Jacques Desbiens. Graphic Artist for the poster design: Dravin Ramasamy. Drawing: Mi-Jeong Lee

This project poster is designed with the center of bear’s body image in the sign of “love” (the bear’s nose in the center of the image) and the circles are around. The final poster designed by graphic artist Dravin