Formally austere but dense with sensation and longing, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s single-channel video Mouth to Mouth (1975) is an eight-minute meditation on the significance of language in Korea’s colonial and diasporic history. Composed of three parts that feature English letters, the vowel graphemes of Han’gŭl (the phonetic script of the Korean alphabet), and an image of a mouth moving in and out of visibility, Mouth to Mouth unfolds into an intensely physical reflection on the Korean language as a mother tongue – a language linked to maternal care, the affective experience of home, and the feeling of national belonging – that has lived in the body and the psyche despite imposed silences. Cha’s title suggests the intimate touch that the image of the mouth embodies, but her spare arrangement of text, image, and sound also transmits a sense of distance and alienation.1¹ A visual poem that proceeds from writing to speech, Mouth to Mouth evokes the desires for belonging that the concept of the mother tongue might encapsulate for a woman who has inherited the losses written into Korean history. At the same time, the video contributes to Cha’s work eroding the fantasy that women symbolise the affective plentitude with which the mother tongue is associated.

中文翻译：

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口工作：在Theresa Hak Kyung Cha的艺术中写母语的声音

特蕾莎·克京查（Theresa Hak Kyung Cha）的单曲录像《嘴到嘴》（1975年）虽然形式严峻，但充满了感动和向往，是对语言在韩国殖民和流散历史中的重要性的沉思，历时八分钟。由三个部分组成，这些部分具有英文字母，汉格的元音字素（韩语的语音文字）以及嘴巴从嘴到嘴移入和移出能见度的图像尽管被强加了沉默，但作为一种母语，这种韩语却在身体上和精神上一直深深地反映在朝鲜语中，这是一种与孕产妇护理，家庭情感体验以及民族归属感相关的语言。茶的标题所暗示的亲密接触口中得知体现的形象，但她的备用文本，图像和声音的安排也传送距离和alienation.1感^1个视觉诗，从写演讲，进行嘴对嘴唤起了一种归属感，即母语的概念可以封装给继承了韩国历史记载的损失的女性。同时，该视频还有助于Cha的作品消除幻想，即女性象征着与母语相关的情感上的宽容。