13th Gwangju Biennale — Minds Rising Spirits Tuning

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Gallery 5

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Matriarchy in Motion

Matriarchal cultures and knowledge acquired through feminine wisdom(s) circulate in the endmost gallery of the Biennale Hall. We convene here amid the unveiling of “dissident goddesses” in historical paintings of dragon queens from popular Korean mythology and cine-somatic readings of land struggles, dispossession,  and matrilineal grounds that connect us with Aboriginal Australia in Angela Melitopoulos’ essay film. Liliane Lijn’s Electric Bride indicates how the “natural” body becomes mechanized and hybrid speaking to techno-feminist futures. Lynn Hershman Leeson creates a living sculpture addressing bacterial agency, sustenance, and morphologies that “twist” the very idea of woman. Vivian Lynn draws attention to the recesses of our brain, and composes totemic motifs that exude femme power. And finally, Femke Herregraven places us underwater and in the larynxes of Jeju pearl divers, evoking an acoustic environment filled with aquatic tonalities. The maternal body acts beyond reproductive duties, moreover it processes and vanquishes societal ruptures.