Women Cinemakers meets
Darae Baek Lives and works in Glasgow and Seoul
My work is based on my memory of an experience I had before coming to Glasgow. It is about my grandmother, who was suddenly hospitalised a few months before I moved. Last July, her health declined and she spent one week in hospital. The room in the hospital was very quiet. I could only hear my grandmother’s groans and the respirator which was helping her breathe. My parents told me that we needed to prepare to let her go soon, although they seemed so unprepared for this. As she was old, I knew this would happen one day. On one occasion, I spent the whole day with her. She slept most of the time. I sat next her and spent time watching her. I suddenly wondered if this would be the last time I saw her. I wanted to capture this moment with a camera, but when I saw her through the lens, I could not take the shot, as she seemed to be in pain. Instead, I filmed the respirator to remember the moment. Fortunately, she was later discharged from the hospital. This memory has remained strong in my mind and has often made me feel anxious in Glasgow. As a result, I decided to make a video to express the personal issues that I brought from South Korea to Glasgow. I wanted a video that could recall these anxieties, influenced by the Glasgow city scene I am currently staying in. I wanted to express the emotion I felt indirectly through simple objects and actions; gelatine, a spoon and a syringe. The gelatine was inspired by the respirator video I filmed in the hospital. I was looking for an object that was transparent, like the water in the respirator. I chose the gelatine as the substitute for the sound it made. When I touched the gelatine, it made a sound like that of the respirator.
An interview by Francis L. Quettier and Dora S. Tennant womencinemaker@berlin.com
Hello Darae and welcome to
: we
would like to invite our readers to visit in order to get a wider idea about your artistic production and we would start this interview with a couple of questions about your background. You have a solid formal training