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Every Sunday through Still I Rise, Arnolfini’s galleries will be transformed into a platform for groups of young, female street dancers – taking ownership of a space they are usually denied, in Young In Hong’s performance work.

Let Us Dance invites teenage girls to voluntarily create a central role in a performance. Street dancing teenagers, enter the gallery space, dance to soundtracks from their mobile phones playing their choice of songs and then leave the space. This simple act of resistance, defiance, and tremendous skill gestures towards a world in which the autonomy and celebration of young women in institutional spaces is a given rather than an exception.

The artist offers space and time for the girls to dance, the girls are given the opportunity to create the artwork on their own. Here the completion of the work is entirely left in the girls’ hands. Hierarchy and the authorship of the artist as well as the artwork and the role of art in the current socio-political climate are questioned through a vibrant piece of dance.

Let Us Dance was inspired by the teenage girls’ role in 2008 demonstrations in Seoul, and first performed in PLATEAU, Seoul in 2014. In 2016, Let Us Dance was revived by a different group of participants in Paris as part of South Korea Guest of Honour, Art Paris Art Fair 2016. This is the project’s UK premiere.

Young In Hong

Young In Hong is a visual artist whose artistic practice embraces a range of disciplines of textiles, drawing, installation, performance, art in public space and artist book making. She often conducts research-led practices and is interested in undervalued cultural practices, politics of intuition and the practice of ‘equality’.

For her performance projects, Young In works in collaboration with art institutions, curators, performing artists and the public. Collective memory embedded in an unwritten history is a central theme, which often leads the artist to focus on historical archival images of specific events in South Korea.

Young In has presented work at Turner Contemporary, Margate (2017), Block Universe, London (2017), La Triennale di Milano (2016), Grand Palais, Paris (2016), Cecilia Hillström Gallery, Stockholm (2013/2016), ICA (2015), Gwangju Biennale (2014/2004), Delfina Foundation, London (2014), Kukje Gallery, Seoul (2013), Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2011).

Let Us Dance is presented by Arnolfini, with the support of Trinity Centre.