OH Haji─what drops out of stitches
KONDO Yuki
Curator, Aomori Contemporary Art Centre

Going through “The letters from sister” by OH Haji, viewers’ relations to andimpressions of the work seemed to change gradually as they entered inside
the work. At the end of a wide space is something like a large curtain madeup of hemp ropes hanging from the ceiling, dividing a small back-room andthe outer space. One end of it reaches the floor and turns into three chairs.
With a coarsely woven part and straight ropes hanging down, it looks like
unfinished knitting. The knitted part of hemp ropes reminds me of women’s
handwork and everyday life while the thick, coarse texture, a smell of oil
rising from hemp ropes as well as the remaining threads give the work
hardness, strength to face up to something, and a quality of coveringsomething inside rather than flexibility and receptiveness generated by theplasticity and wrapping nature of fabric.
Despite its screening nature, the central part of the curtain is open withseveral bundles hooked on the wall so that viewers are led inside. On thewall of the place that looks like a small room, a seascape is projected and twoframes of embroidery on canvas are hanging. On the two frames,“DEAREST” and “YASASHII (sweet and kind in Japanese)” are embroidered
respectively with beeswax and white thread. These two words come from anovel.
In “The letters from sister” produced by OH Haji this time, “OBASAN” 1
written by Joy KOGAWA is used as the motif. Joy KOGAWA tells the story ofa Japanese-Canadian persecuted as an enemy during the Second World War
as seen through the eyes of a third generation Japanese-Canadian woman.
Revisiting the memories as a child, the writer describes those days and thedark period of the war through her small world such as family relationships
and everyday life. “The letters from sister,” the title of OH Haji’s work comesfrom the diary based on letters written by the heroine’s aunt who used towrite letters to her sister, the heroine’s mother, living in Japan. Somepassages were extracted from the book and copied as part of the installation
1

Joy KOGAWA, OBASAN, PENGUIN, Toronto, 1983 [1981].
1along with the pages. The page numbers get lower as you proceed to theinterior of the room so that you go back to the past chronologically. Theletters copied with a pencil from a whole page are arranged randomly on
white pages. While describing disastrous wartime situations, those letters
appeal to visitors to fill in the blank space of the margin with their
imaginary complementary stories. As you proceed further reading thoseletters, you will find yourself involved in the work unconsciously, which firstlooked towering in the distance. That feeling resembles what you experience
when you are reading a novel and somehow getting into the world of it, butat the same time, you feel as if you were getting into your own inner world
through imagination leading you into the blank space. After reading a part ofthe diary, which portrays everyday life and at the same time makes us feelthe fear of encroaching waves of the war, I thought this heart-warming spaceof the work that reminded me of the inside of a room or “home” seemed to beturning into an inward-looking space firmly closed against the outside world.
I was told that the above-mentioned “YASASHII” is a word that appears
as it is in the original book written in English. Here Oh reads the writer’sintention to retain such a feeling or emotion as she finds too difficult totranslate in the community of Japanese-Canadians where English has
become their everyday language. Words that are not translatable areprobably those from which we do not want to lose even a single drop ofmeaning.
Having studied dyeing and weaving, Oh mainly produces works with cloth
employing embroidery, dyeing and weaving techniques. Above all, she uses
the motif of the ethnic costume, which is considered to be representing eachethnic thought and history in the embroidery as well as pattern andstructure of the woven fabric, or its shape. The style of the ethnic costume
was originally produced out of each racial inner desire, but it is regarded anddealt with as the symbol of each ethnic category viewed from both the inside
and the outside when different races confront with each other. Therefore,
defiling the ethnic costume does not merely mean soiling clothes---it isinterpreted as a disgrace to the racial pride or open hostility to the race. The
whole personal history made with women’s hands at home and handed downfrom generation to generation by blood- and region-related people is partly
compelled to bear the social and political symbol. The ethnic costume is made2

to have such public quality by the power that has nothing to do with ideas
and consciousness of the people who made, cherished and preserved such acostume. With these two viewpoints in mind, Oh has chosen the ethnic
costume, and tries to throw light on how the symbol is structured from theinside and the outside.
“Wedding dress for minority race” (2000) (fig.1) is a work that she
consciously produced in regard to her own roots. In the work, a Korean
traditional wedding dress is made with old kimono cloths (Japanese ethnic
costume) sewn together and is embroidered. Though each of the ethnic
costume is what has been handed down from ancestors, it sometimes isendowed with a meaning or plays a role divergent from the individual
personal feelings over the course of social and political changes. Concerning
the background to her production of the work 2, Oh refers to the uneasy
feeling that she had with people watching her dressed in chima jeogori(Korean ethnic costume) in Japanese society, the awareness of thosewatching and those watched, and a gap in perceptions between the personal
feeling for clothes, and social, historical representation given from outside.
In “Landscape on the boundary” (2006) (fig.2), an imaginary owner of theethnic costume becomes a “wandering Roma.” That ethnic ikat
(kasuri)-woven costume reminds me of an ethnic costume somewhere in East
Asia. A wanderer does not have a specific hometown. In other words, it isdropped out of a major section like “Wedding dress for minority race,” andwhile it is the “ethnic costume” for those whose existence has been concealedin the mainstream history, it looks like the “ethnic costume” for those who
are trying consciously to escape from uncritical representation that is trite,
stiffened, and insensitively violent. And the very act of weaving that costumeby hand seems to reveal the attitude to verify her present position criticallyand consciously to reconstruct it, not escaping from uncriticalrepresentation.
On the other hand, the motif of the ethnic costume used in her work does
not refer only to race, community or society. A red long undergarment
repeatedly used as kimono underwear, as well as the work of weaving byhand, and wedding costume and clothes made for special occasions are
A minority race referred to in the title of the work is “zainichi (Koreans living inJapan).” (OH Haji “What does the ethnic costume represent?” YCAR Visiting Scholarwith Discussant Ted GOOSSEN, York Centre for Asian Research, York University, 1stMay 2009.
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related to a viewpoint on “women” and the subject of representation of“femininity.” Concerning the ethnic costume, Oh uses such expression as “asecond skin that reveals one’s inner world and femininity.” 3 I think her
perception of this “skin” is related to “self” in contrast to “society,” orfemininity. Her work “Inside of her skirt” (2006) (fig.3) is partly made to pay
homage to her late grandmother. At the same time, it is about an untold
history of a woman who lived in a certain period, and a memory of whose
existence disappears with her body. Lifeless organdy cloth is spread over theroom, and one end of it is unraveled to threads as if returning to its being
before birth. The work that reminds me of a cast-off skin seems to be pulling
wandering memories together to give them a form not as a record but asphysical senses or a sign of presence. In “Flower spot” (2007) (fig.4), the traceof its vanishing existence looks more directly related to femininity. White
cloth is lightly spread out like a soft skirt worn by a woman. A thread
hanging in the center looks like a hollowed-out torso suggesting an absent
existence. Electric bulbs set inside the cloth give soft light with an air ofwarmth, which makes the viewer feel the residue of the temperature of theabsent person who took off the clothes. What it expresses is neither related
to the outside world nor memories and records expressed in words. It
expresses personal memories engraved by the sensory, inner memories andthe traces of experience, that is, what is remembered on a body. For instance,
it is not a record written down about some definite event, but memories ofsomething generating from daily accumulations and repetitions that cling
firmly for unstated reason, as if it were a stone in the stomach or the openingof a wound that would never close nicely. They are not given chances to berecorded. If you could engrave your personal history only as the whole ofyour physical perceptions, their existence would not be recorded as yourhistory in words. On the other hand, however, they could probably berecorded through the technique of making the ethnic costume, songs, or the
non-linguistic method employed silently in things inherited from generation
to generation. Thus, what is considered non-existent may be handed downalong with non-material thing while making variations. In the diary ofabove-mentioned “The letters from sister,” some incident or definite event is
not put in front, but what the writer sensed in her daily life (if something
was in the air) are accumulated and give a structure to, for example, the year
3

According to her portfolio turned in to ACAC.
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of 1941-2. 4 It shows a kind of “memories” expressed as the accumulation offragments of everyday life, and there you will see how “history” is woven.
There is no doubt that both Korean clothes and femininity are related to thehistory of OH Haji to begin with, a woman with double identity. That history,
however, cannot be kept merely as her personal history. In order to capture
the future, her experiences in the past that is linked to the present needed tobe probed deeply. 5 For that reason, the starting point of personal memories
is to link with common memories handed down by generations. Ideas andemotions do not result from some specific events, but are generated throughaccumulations and nurtured through repetitions. Her attempt to escape from
representation could be likened to a fabric woven by repeating warps andwefts over a long period of time in that she is searching for a kind of method
in which left-out things can be connected only through piling multiple layersof them. She is not dismantling structures at hand, looking at or feelingleft-out things and physical wounds, but trying to mold them in a different
manner.
Let me go back to “The letters to sister.” Three chairs are born at the endof the hemp rope curtain. According to Oh, the chairs reflect the relations
such as one for “me” as the self, another for “you” as another person, and thelast for “me and you” as society or community. 6 The world is not comprised ofme alone. The world, in which consciousness of me, you and society as
another extensive consciousness are intertwined, represents some patterns
like fabric, and probably different patterns are visible from different
viewpoints. None of them has priority. Of the work of weaving, Oh stated, “I
have a feeling that the warp is a time-axis, and with the weft passing
sideways, some space is formed. The cross-section represents existence.” 7 Inthat sense, a long hanging hemp rope curtain is considered to be a metaphor
The diary in the novel was written in 1941-2, and on December 8 of that year, Pearl
Harbor was attacked and the Pacific War began.
5 Rebecca JENNISON analyzed OH Haji’s works that are based on the themes of
personal memory and family history by using the concept of “postmemory” with which
Marianne HIRSCH analyzed how family photos were used by Holocaust survivors andartists.
Rebecca JENNISON, “ ‘Postmemory’ in the Work of OH Haji and KUM Soni”
LEE Chong-Hwa (edit.) “Zanshoh no Oto, Future of Asia, Politics, and Art” Iwanami
Shoten, 2009, pp. 212-216.
6 From her e-mail answering to the writer’s questions on January 29, 2010.
7 Ibid.
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for the fabric of history, and knitting is unfinished. The half of that hemp
rope curtain is hanging vertically in the state of thread. If it is a metaphor
for the fabric of history, it suggests a comparison between the woven history(events that took place) and beings that exist without being woven.
Inactively hanging threads look as if they were enduring to accept
everything including the woven history and what drops out from there. On
the other hand, even the woven part has its end unwoven and goes back tothreads. These several years, Oh has repeatedly used a style in which fabricin the work comes loose, gets woven, and gets undone again to disperse. Itshows her attitude to dismantle prescribed representation and reconstructs
it.
“Everywhere the old woman stands as the true and rightful owner ofthe earth. She is the bearer of keys to unknown doorways and to anetwork of astonishing tunnels. She is the possessor of life’s infinite
personal details.”(Joy KOGAWA, “OBASAN”, Anchorbooks, New York, pp.18—19.)
Translated by NISHIZAWA Miki

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