Performing memory and testimony after a national disaster: the Sewol mothers in Talking about Her (2016), VEGA (2016), and His and Her Closet (2016)

Abstract

In response to the Sewol Ferry disaster and mishandling of the South Korean government, Korean activists and artists mobilized collaboration with the victims’ families to produce activist theatre productions that center not only the trauma of those most affected by the disaster but also their lived experiences and wishes, especially those of the mothers. Furthermore, the performance community has come to include and represent the mothers not only as victims but as active participants whose grief is transmuted through performance into political activism. Combining tools of active viewing and participant observation, this article examines three of these works—Talking about Her (2016a) and VEGA (Jaguar 2016), which are performance pieces adapted from testimonies by the mothers, and Yellow Ribbon’s first performance, His and Her Closet (2016b). This article focuses on the ways these works, through utilizing the memories and testimonies of the mothers, have come to constitute a kind of collaborative public counter-memory against state cover-ups and unempathetic accounts, centering demands for change in commemoration practices and transforming the meaning of Sewol into a catalyst for political and social change.