Harvesting the Light: The Graves of Diaspora is a work in remembrance and re-animating the significance of the burial place of people by synthesizing photos of different sources. The photo of two North Korean girls offers a template of harvesting light over the photosynthesis of miners of the colonial times and migrant of Koryo people. The work is inspired by the quantum biology to evoke the political ecology of archival images.

Harvesting the Light: The Graves of Diaspora opens with a line from Han Jin (1931-1993) born in North Korea and sought a political asylum after denouncing Kim Ilsung while he was a student at VGIK, worked and lived in Russia and Kazakhstan. He throws a question: “We call home where people are born but what do we call where people are buried? It should sound as tender as home.” His calling for affectionate naming for the place of burial is yet to be elaborated. There are three kinds of photos either from archive or collection mobilized in the film. The first one is a photo of two North Korean girls, which taken in Kamchatka Oblast. The second set of photo is part of the exhibition curated by Lee Yongwoo; the photos were provided by the Foundation for Victims of Forced Mobilization by Imperial Japan. The third layer of the film is connected to the graves of diaspora Koryo saram.

World Premiere