Jeamin Cha, Almost One (2018), South Korea

A camera stands in a classroom in Seoul, where aspiring child actors are taking an acting class. The children mostly follow their instructor’s directions without much anxiety or doubt. Such adaptability of the children makes the training process efficient: their flexibility in learning itself is regarded as a talent. Child actors, however, sometimes cannot fully grasp the situation and the emotion that a given character experiences. One pedagogical method in such a case is to induce the children to evoke an emotion pertinent to a context different from the given situation and have them apply that emotion to the script. While this may seem manipulative, all education attempts, to some degree, to manipulate the emotions of the learner; it is a common property of education. Almost One focuses on the children’s subtle and instinctive facial expressions of refusal captured during the class. This work reflects on the responses to persuasive attempts to disguise ignorance as intelligence, and the will to escape ignorance.

About Jeamin Cha

Jeamin Cha is an artist based in Seoul whose practice spans film, performance, installation, and writing. Cha’s work deals with the relationship between the psychological, emotional, and physical. She approaches the reality of individuals through processes of field studies and notes personal interviews of hard-to-articulate experiences. It is also interested in preserving unknown areas that are gradually shrinking as technology advances. Cha has participated in numerous group exhibitions and festivals, including Singapore Biennale; Leeum Museum of Art; Asian Culture Center; Film at Lincoln Center; KADIST; Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Gwangju Biennale; Seoul Museum of Art Biennale Mediacity; Berlin International Film Festival; International Short Film Festival Oberhausen; DMZ International Documentary Film Festival; DOOSAN gallery; KUKJE gallery.