Halmang

Overview

The video installation Halmang (2023) revolves around a group of eight women in their 70s and 80s who have made a living together for most of their lives as haenyeo. A black lava rock islet was once a shamanic shrine for the wind goddess Yeongdeung Halmang. In Kaisen’s poignant visual imagery, the women’s hands meticulously fold and connect sochang — long white cotton pieces of cloth symbolising the spiral movement of spirituality and the cycle of life and death. As the video unfolds, the sochang winds around the islet like a parting embrace.