Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was a Korean-American artist, writer, and filmmaker, born on March 4, 1951, amidst the turmoil of the Korean War. After relocating to the United States with her family in 1962, she pursued an extensive education that included four degrees, culminating in a master’s in fine arts. Cha’s artistic development was influenced by her studies in Ethnic and Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she engaged in performance and video art, as well as installations. Her notable works often delve into themes of language, identity, and the immigrant experience, with her best-known piece, *Dictée*, published posthumously in 1982, serving as a complex exploration of alienation and empowerment.
Cha's creative output spanned various media, including film and literature, and she is recognized for her innovative approach that blends poetry with visual elements. Tragically, her life was cut short when she was murdered in 1982, shortly before *Dictée* was released. Despite her brief career, Cha's influence extends across multiple academic disciplines, inspiring a wide range of artists and scholars and reshaping perceptions of biography and identity in art.
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Subject Terms
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Korean-born artist, photographer, and writer
- Pronunciation: HAW-kah KEE-young CHARH
- Born: March 4, 1951
- Birthplace: Pusan, Korea (now South Korea)
- Died: November 5, 1982
- Place of death: New York, New York
Novelist and poet Theresa Hak Kyung Cha also worked as an experimental filmmaker and performance artist. An influential figure in both postmodern art and Asian American literature, she is best known for her work Dictée, which was published after her death.
Areas of achievement: Art, film
Early Life
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was born on March 4, 1951, during the Korean War. At the time of her birth, her South Korean parents, Hyung Sang and Hyung Soon Cha, were seeking refuge from advancing North Korean and Chinese armies. In 1962, the family moved to the United States, first settling in Hawaii. A year later, they moved to San Francisco, where Cha was enrolled at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic school. In addition to her religious studies, she studied Greek and Roman classics and French. All of these subjects would influence her later work as an artist. After graduating from high school, Cha enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley. She became involved with the newly formed Ethnic Studies Department, taking courses in Asian American studies, African American studies, and women’s studies. Cha experimented with performance art, video art, and art installations, producing a variety of works while earning four different academic degrees. She earned a bachelor of arts in comparative literature in 1973 and a bachelor of arts in humanities in 1975. In 1977, she earned a master’s degree in art and, in 1978, a master’s degree in fine arts.
Cha’s work at Berkeley gave her access to the Pacific Film Archive, where she met other filmmakers and viewed a diverse amount of classic and avant-garde films. There, she produced her work entitled Earth, a 1973 artist book of symbolist poetry that combined English and French and explored language through repetition, isolation, font choice, layout, and changes in context. Two others, Barren Cave Mate (1974) and Aveugle Voix (1975), feature Cha uncovering written words that emphasize her struggle as a woman and an immigrant.
Life’s Work
In the late 1970s, Cha traveled to Paris, where she studied the theory of filmmaking. This led to her compilation of a series of essays on film theory in the book Apparatus, Cinematographic Apparatus: Selected Writings (1981), which she edited. The book included Cha’s own text and photo piece, “Commentaire.” Cha would go on to create many of her own film works, most of which focus on the exploration of language, such as the notable Mouth-to-Mouth (1975), in which a woman attempts to speak. The central figure opens and closes her mouth, struggles to make sounds but produces no coherent speech.
The literary collage work entitled Dictée, which was published after Cha’s death in 1982, became her best-known work. While working on a project in South Korea, Cha was accused of spying for the north. She explored this experience in her densely layered, extended prose poem, Dictée.The work is a compendium of poetry and collage that includes photographs, maps, and historical documents. In Dictée, Cha explores the alienation she experienced as a foreigner throughout her life. The book also explores the possibility of empowerment among immigrant cultures. It tells a fictional story of Cha’s mother, the young Korean revolutionary woman Yu Guan Soon, and the saints Joan of Arc and Thérèse of Lisieux. In addition to lines of poetry, Cha’s use of a variety of print media and imagery in Dictée makes the work a unique type of autobiography.
Six months after marrying her husband, photographer Richard Barnes, and just a few weeks before the release of Dictée, Cha was murdered in lower Manhattan. At the time of her death, she was pursuing a number of projects, including Exile´e and Temps Morts: Selected Works. Split into two parts, Exilée is the text of an earlier video installation, whereas Temps Morts is the remains of an unfinished film project.
Significance
Cha’s work is viewed from a variety of perspectives and scholarly disciplines, including feminism, Asian American studies, postmodern theory, postcolonial theory, media studies, fine art, and art history. In addition to inspiring many poets and artists, her work Dictée helped change the standard conceptualization of what a biography can be.
Bibliography
Kang, Hyun Yi, Elaine H. Kim, Norma Alarcón, eds. Writing Self, Writing Nation: A Collection of Essays on “Dictée” by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Berkeley: Third Woman, 1994. Print. A significant analysis that includes a narrative chronology assembled by Moira Roth based on interviews and thorough research.
Kim, Sue J. Critiquing Postmodern in Contemporary Discourses of Race. New York: Macmillan, 2009. Print. A collection of essays, including one devoted to Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and form.
Lewallen, Constance, Lawrence Rinder, and Thi Minh-Ha Trinh. The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951–1982). Berkeley: U of California P, 2001. Print. A catalog of a touring exhibition organized by the UC Berkeley Art Museum. Offers comprehensive analysis of Cha’s work and includes a detailed chronology of her life with photos of the artist and many of her works.
Spahr, Juliana. Everybody’s Autonomy: Connective Reading and Collective Identity. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2001. Print. Discusses five poets, including Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.