Child of Magohalmi and the Echos of Creation, 2019
ABOUT THE WORK
Zadie Xa stages a multimedia theatrical installation in the historic reading room of Walthamstow Library. Audiences are invited to enter an immersive, subaquatic and marine environment of spoken word and sonic interludes. The work is an origin story, inspired loosely by Korean folkloric creation myths. Xa’s version of this myth centres around women and the passing down of ancestral knowledge through matrilineal social structures by way of atmospheric lighting, surround-sound and large-scale video projections, with live performances throughout the night. Developed in collaboration with Benito Mayor Vallejo and performed by Iris Chan, Jia-Yu Corti, Mary Feliciano, Jihye Kim and Yumino Seki.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Zadie Xa uses live performance, video, painting and textiles to question how cultures inform identities and notions of self. Her layered costume works are sites for exploring personal cultural histories that stitch together personally relevant imagery sourced from music, digital space, fashion and art history. Xa has developed a system of personalised symbols that propose entirely new images and objects, creating a personal visual language for articulating nuanced Asian identity narratives, which are frequently situated within fantastical or supernatural realms.
ABOUT THE VENUE
The historic Walthamstow Library is a Victorian Grade II* listed building, built with money donated by the Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, whose portrait bust can be seen on the exterior of the building.
