Jeamin Cha

Sound Garden
Single channel video installation, 2019, FHD video, 30 minutes, color/3-channel sound

Sound Garden alternates between scenes of large trees being transported and interviews of South Korean female mental health counselors who reflect on counseling’s ambivalence and complexity. Most of the trees transported by trucks are farmed and not wild. These cultivated trees are tended so that they grow large in size and maintain aesthetic quality; furthermore, they are designed to thrive in urban environments, where they are transplanted as street trees. For these trees, even natural nourishment like sunlight, regardless of its quality, is part of a commodification process. Mental health counseling, for its part, has traditionally been associated with self-reflection, upliftment, or the treatment of mental illness. However, post-capitalism actively employs counseling as a form of mental health management for individuals. On the other hand, this film also pays attention to the anti-capitalistic possibility of counseling. Counseling performs the function of searching for the cause and reason of mental disorders, instead of treating them as biochemical problems. Counseling is the vast task of disentangling the human spirit damaged by contemporary values and social environments; exploring in reverse order someone’s inner side no longer able to self-recover. The work is an attempt to discover the potential of this overwhelming mission through the women’s voice.

A Film by
Jeamin Cha

Interviewee
Hyunju Ha
Kahee Lee
Eunkyong Jung
Hyorok Cha

Cast
Seungkook Lee

Producer Jiwon Lee, Bongu Bark (Production Complex)
Assistant Director and Sound Recordist Seung Namgung
Director of Photography Jisoo Kwon
Camera Assistant Jin Roh, Jaeho Choi
Camera B Dongseok Shin
Sound Designer Guenchae Kim (Punktire Studio)
Props and People with Pickets Hanbyol Cho, Hyejin Byun
Translation Jiwon Lee

Location
SolpyoLandscape Architecture, NAMUNARA, Minji Landscape Architecture

With Special Thanks to
Kim Nam Sik, Lee Seok Cheon, Sangsoo Koo, Donggi Kim, Dongseok Shin, Kahyun Song, Eunsoon Yoo, Shinjae Kim, Myongkyo Hong, Semin Oh, Morceau.J.Woo, No-one Kwak, KADIST, DMZ Industry

Commission for the exhibition Compulsion to Repeat