From reminiscences of a forgotten flood to modern-day catastrophes, Ayoung Kim’s show crosses over eras with its foundation point being oil, that magical substance that surges up from the earth to irrigate world history. Based on in-depth research into this fossil fuel, which was already present in many previous pieces, Ayoung Kim works using sound or visual and textual collages. Intermingling in this way, the artist devises narrative set-ups so as weigh up our contemporary societies.
Ayoung Kim is here opening up a new vein of research based on the underground lake of Palais Garnier, which goes back to the building’s construction, so as to protect this marshy site from any possible rise in the water-table. This reservoir has been coated with pitch, an oil spin-off used since antiquity for its impermeable property: the foundation floods as related in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Quran or the tale of Noah’s ark already mention it. And so connections are then made with the architecture of the Palais Garnier. As result, Ayoung Kim has written an opera libretto, in which evocations of ancestral myths lead us back to contemporary concerns. In this way, those feelings of fear and urgency that accompany a coming catastrophe are announced.
Ayoung Kim (born in Seoul in 1979) is currently in residence at Pavillon Neuflize OBC, research lab of Palais de Tokyo, where she is participating in a group project with the choreographers of Académie de l’Opéra National, Paris. (Chloé Fricout)