I Have (Had) A Dream   2008

Edmonton, AB

I Have (Had) A Dream is the second project in an on-going series of public performances titled "Wrong Places."

In 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial (Washington DC), Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech for the African - American civil rights movement. 45 years later, this speech is translated into Korean, recited in front of an Anglophone audience, while wearing a Korean military uniform painted in UN-blue. English words and phrases spliced into the speech become cues for imbedded "assassins" to shoot pink paintballs at the uniform as well as the portraits of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama. After the performance, the blue uniform is painted pink in its entirety(in reference to the term "pinkos" used to label Communist sympathizers in North America). Through the conflicted emotional memory and prism of an era that represented hopes for social justice, contemporary political climate and events are re-interpreted and reevaluated.

1: production still
2 - 7: performance

Photos: Jessica Tse
Video:  Yulia Startsev

 

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