The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger is an endeavor to re-think dominant narratives of international adoption from South Korea to the United States and Europe by situating international adoption within a longer history of military and patriarchal violence against women and children. The film spans from the era of Japanese colonization of South Korea from 1910-1945, to the emergence of the Cold War, through South Korea’s militarized modernity, and the permanent installment of US hegemony in South Korea from the 1950s onwards. The film explores how bio-political violence onto women’s and children’s bodies have been mobilized for national security and economic growth and became central in geopolitical negotiations between South Korea, the United States, and Japan. This part of world history has been systematically silenced, but largely due to efforts of the ‘diaspora’ it is beginning to surface and counter dominant narratives in South Korea and in the West.

Jane Jin Kaisen (1980) is a visual artist working in a project-based manner in the mediums of film, performance, and installation around questions concerning political subjectivity and the formation of collective memory from a postcolonial and transnational feminist perspective. She was adopted from Korea to Denmark and received her education from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, The Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in New York, and The Interdisciplinary Studio Art Program at UCLA in Los Angeles. She is co-founder of the artist collectives UFOLab (Unidentified Foreign Object laboratory) and Chamber of Public Secrets. She has screened her films, exhibited, and performed at venues such as Incheon Women Artists Biennale, Gana Art Gallery New York, Kyoto Arts Center, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, FIKE International Film Festival in Portugal, Hong Kong International Short Film & video Festival, 798 Art Zone in Beijing, The National Gallery in Indonesia, 798 Factory in Beijing, The 2nd Deformes Biennale at Gallery Metropolitana in Chile, and the 25th International Asia Pacific Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Guston Sondin-Kung (1982) has been working as a visual artist primarily in experimental film and performance. His artwork focuses on how systems of knowledge are constructed through emerging contested histories. This investigation is derived from a transnational and postcolonial perspective with the aim of generating alternative genealogies. He has exhibited his work at Nikolaj Kunsthal, CCA Kitakyushu Museum, MOCA Geffen Contemporary, Scandinavia House New York and SolwayJones Gallery Los Angeles. He has also received grants from The J. Paul Getty Museum, Yip Harburg Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation and The Ford Foundation.

Curated by Jesse Aron Green