CECILIA KIM

ceciliakim.persona.co @cecikim

Cecilia Kim is a South Korean video artist working in DC. Kim’s video work is shaped by conversational exchanges as she traverses spaces as a transnational woman, and focuses on labor, language, and cultural barriers through intimate narratives. Kim was awarded the 19th Trawick Prize and her work has been shown in solo and group shows including at the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington Biennial, The Immigrant Artist Biennial, Kaplan Gallery, Hamiltonian Gallery, 0 Gallery, and The Anderson Gallery. Kim has been a resident at Ox-Bow Artists’ School of Art and Artists’ Residency, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Corsicana Artist and Writer Residency, and VisArts Bresler Residency. She is a 2021-23 Hamiltonian Artists Fellow and 2023 Wherewithal Grant recipient. Kim received an M.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University and B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

My work is shaped by people that I have close relationships to through our immaterial exchanges and conversations over shared meals, voice recordings, or therapy. As a transnational Korean woman, I traverse the liminal space between national borders and physical places. I am both an insider and an outsider, in constant search for belonging. In my video series, Performed Labor, I set out to bridge the gap between personal and collective memory. Using traditional Korean recipes as a focal point, I performed a series of food preparations lasting from twelve minutes to over an hour long. As performative gestures, Songpyun, Daechugoim, and Kkochijeon contemplate women’s labor and ties across generations. Though my hands are made visible, my identity remains obscured in black. By blurring boundaries between cultural documentary and surrealist fiction, the Performed Labor series offers a site of relation for women to project their voices, bodies, and narratives into with each careful gesture. Through this video series and others, I am interested in borderless narratives and how they might overcome cultural barriers to foster a sense of connection, understanding, and belonging.