Artist Broadcast | Breakwater (Youngsook Choi and Taey Iohe) and Cường Phạm: Becoming Forest

Becoming Forest is a collaborative endeavour between the artist duo Breakwater (Youngsook Choi and Taey Iohe) and the radio producer, curator, activist Cường Phạm. Breakwater make installations combining performance, film, sound, photography and text to explore postcolonial and intersectional identities.

 

The project considers mental wellbeing as a collective responsibility, focusing on the  detrimental impact of Covid-19 and the spike of anti-Asian racism upon the mental health of Southeast and East Asian diasporas, refugees and precarious migrants in the UK. Drawing upon Frantz Fanon’s seminal observation on the relationship between colonial oppression/violence and mental illness, this project conceptualises collective healing as performing justice. 

In the first of four radio episodes that aim to provide and hold a space of solidarity and communal comfort, the artists invite listeners to join them for a guided sonic meditation, featuring birdsong, weather and a nostalgic Southeast and East Asian soundtrack as well as an interview with Michaele Nagac, a mental health support officer at Kanlungan Filipino Consortium.

Copyright Breakwater, Cường Phạm & Arts Catalyst.
Produced by Kitty Turner.
Sound design by Lori E Allen.
Graphic Design by An Endless Supply.

Radio Arts Catalyst is supported by Arts Council England with Art Fund and Sheffield Church Burgesses Trust.