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(RE)WRITING HISTORY THROUGH GESTURE

AND BODY MOVEMENT
by Bora Lee-Kil

• • • • • • •

Research & project

Reading the silence and memories of our bodies

Bora Lee-Kil has always been interested in memory, and within the particular socio-political context of her
home country South Korea, in the memory of those whose voices do not resound in the official, patriarchal
language – the voices, for example, of women and the deaf. South Korea is a totalitarian and patriarchal
society. Being like others is a virtue. Being different means being excluded. Having been raised by two deaf
parents, Bora Lee-Kil’s first language is sign language. Her parents’ language isn’t considered a ‘language’ in
the eyes of the outside world, but a ‘gesture’ denoting their shortcomings. To Bora, however, the words of
gestures and facial expressions are more important than spoken or written words.

In her research, Bora examines how socio-political history is inscribed in the movements of her body and how
the ideas, mechanisms and power of a state and society have become her body’s memory. At the same time,
the silence and the hidden, personal memories that cannot be spoken about and have no place in the
collective memory are equally inscribed in the body. The body as a space and expression of multiple forces
and histories.

Bora has been working on three projects, Pledge of Allegiance, Black Paper and Our Bodies. In this most
recent project, Bora investigates how the prohibition of abortion, and the impossibility of talking about it with
each other, has affected three generations of women in her family, including herself.

Biopolitics, Feminism, Body politics, Embodied

memory, Herstory

Master of Film | Visual abstract by Bora Lee-Kil

from NFA Master ??

03:35

Bora Lee-Kil
Course
Master of Film

Class
2019

Website
www.boraleekil.com

Email
nomadbora@gmail.com

Bora Lee-Kil is a South Korean writer and filmmaker who believes that being born to and raised by deaf
parents has given her the best gift of storytelling. She dropped out of school at the age of sixteen and traveled
South East Asia for 8 months. This experience inspired her first film, Road-Schooler (2008) which also resulted
in a book, Road is School (2009). Following this, she studied filmmaking at Korea National University of Arts.
Glittering Hands (2014) is an award-winning documentary based on her stories of growing up moving back
and forth between two worlds – one of silence and one of sounds. Her recent feature film, A War of Memories
received the jury’s special mention for the Mecenat Award at the Busan International Film Festival in 2018.
She also won the Korea Emerging Women’s Culture Award in 2015.

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