About the Company

Established in 2003, Momggol has drawn attention in the arts scene by presenting works that integrate social contexts through bodies and objets. They continue their work by finding stories of bodies, objets and spaces on the street. They always think about how to visualize bodies’ memories and properties. Rather than beginning to create something through dramaturgy, they try to bring out things that stimulate their bodies. They ceaselessly experiment with their own artistic language that feels both fresh and unfamiliar. Doing this, they are willing to evoke what society has forgotten or excluded.

Interview

Q. What is the source of Momggol’s creative ideas? Could you explain the creative method and process of Momggol which moves among bodies, objets and streets?

YOON Jongyeoun: We mostly work on things and objets so the material we choose becomes an important starting point for us. For example, we start creation by selecting objects symbolizing the contemporary era or by establishing a space as an expanded concept. Depending on how we look at objects and how we arrange the actors’ bodies, we can have a variety of sentiments, tensions and stories. Rather than making something meaningful out of a neutral space like a black box, we try to bring out what has been hidden and invisible by means of the existing space and materials. Stories we met on the street were really diverse and sometimes, they were hiding what is miserable and unknown. So we came to expand our performance venue to the street and we also expanded our stories along with spaces.

YOON Jongyeoun: As we start creating on the basis of actors’ bodies and power, we focus on what makes them move and where they are headed with their power. In other words, we begin our work by imagining that we are traveling to a certain destination or an unknown existence. At the beginning, the company often used “nightmare” as a tool to look at different aspects of life. Through a nightmare, we observed life’s dark side and we also depicted someone having a nightmare. To us, a nightmare always exists in our lives but we are not accustomed to it so we are afraid and on alert and we also hit the wall. For instance, the performance “Handcart, Overturned" describes a person who finds themselves under wheels and or who is taken to a certain place by force. In contrast, our recent works have more cheerful and satirical elements. That may be because of the changes in life, politics and society. I feel that our society still has many “brakes getting in the way.” We are breaking away from something. We are not moving forward and bumping into something. As we reflect on how to deal with these things, we are diversifying our creative methods.

YOON Jongyeoun: "TheGrave Faraway" depicts those who need to visit someone’s grave but who are wandering, not being able to get there. In this work, it isn’t important to know where they are headed and who is blocking them. It was made visible naturally during the period when the work was produced. So we rather deleted all the tools that tell the stories concretely. A that time, protesters filled Gwanghwamun Plaza every day after the death of Mr. BaekNam-gi¹.On the performance day, the protesters’ flags filled the entire plaza which was surrounded by the police. In the underground space of the plaza, a performance was taking place and on the staircase of the plaza, protesters’ flags werevisible. In such a chaotic situation, we didn’t’ even know if we could stage the performance. So the work’s story didn’t need any other tool in addition to the given situation. Put differently, it was a work that existed with the era. With the performance, we wanted to show people who feel confused while wandering; they can’t go to the grave and they have no choice but to get back to their reality. I’m curious about how the people who were there would have viewed this work even for a moment. It wasn’t an easy performance but it was a work with meaningful confusion because it faced and dealt with the multilayered contemporary era.

YOON Jongyeoun: "The White Book of Propaganda" was presented in 2017 when Korea was going through a really confusing period politically. We believed that the performance wouldn’t be meaningful unless it is staged in the Gwanghwamun area at that time. So we did it just once and we won’t be doing it again probably. In that year, Korean society looked like at rain or a wild animal running recklessly. We wanted to make use of the performance to talk about unilateral logic and recklessness in an indirect and satirical way. We also wanted to give people a chance to look at the plaza with different arguments, from a new perspective and sensibility. Just in time, the performance was presented on a day when the plaza’s festival and protests we reunveiling different facets of Korean society without any filtering. From our performance venue, we were able to look at the chaotic moment from above. It may have been a coincidence to face such a landscape of overlapping, complexsituations. Anyway, the tumultuous scenes in such situations served as animportant backdrop for the performance’s story. In Korean, there is a conceptof “borrowing a landscape.” When Korean ancestors built a house, they were believing that they were borrowing a landscape. That concept worked for this performance. That is also the secret behind the production of such a large-scale work even with a small budget.

YOON Jongyeoun: We produced "Something Missing" with a Thai company called B-Floor for three years and staged it with them. The performance is a story of those who lost something but who don’t know what it is. Every year, we stayed in Thailand for a month to find stories for the work through joint research and workshops. The performance indirectly reveals untold stories and things happening in a society of censorship and control while indirectly criticizing the era full of irony. B-Floor was ceaselessly producing works with acute messages despite Thailand’s social restrictions amid military dictatorship. Their stories and expressions rang true to us so we came to work with them. This collaborative performance is a site-specific, movement-based work. During the performance, we walked around the theater and wildly opened the door of the washroom at the corner. We also had a worship service on a rooftop. The work received a prize at the Bangkok Theater Festival in Thailand, thus drawing greater attention in the Thai arts scene than in the Korean one. Before that, we had often worked with Europeanartists so we hadn’t known about neighboring countries in Asia. So we were happy to work with an Asian country meaningfully, starting with Thailand. During the collaboration, we talked about what had happened in Asian countries throughout history and what influences they had exchanged, from the perspective of world history. We had a high level of mutual trust so we were able to counton and respect each other throughout the collaboration. That was the mostprecious result. Once we fixed certain stories, we kept developing them from a long-term perspective to make them clear. In this way, we were able to deal with our common themes more deeply.

YOON Jongyeoun: "Impulse" deals with the human desire to keep climbing by means of two hemispheres (serving as a roly-poly toy) and a ladder. The performance actively observes and utilizes the limitations of materiality and forms of games. So it seems to have many elements that make the audience react and feel happy. The work’s acrobatics generate tensions and the performance strongly encourages people to move with it. We have actually used a ladder quite often. It has been about 10 years since we began to deal with the objet. A ladder has simple lines so it is very easy to change it theatrically and to come up with diverse symbols. Starting by directly exploring an objet, we find stories for our work from the object’s stories. This naturally leads to securing elements of creation. Modifying and developing our view of the objet,we condense the existing discoveries. And such research process has led us tothe performance "Impulse". If we create something, it is consumed and dealt with easily. And so many ideas are thrown away. This is also linked to environmental issues. We have persistently tried to make use of different ideas, physical elements and concerns, without throwing them away easily. This may look like something that is inefficient and that isn’t fresh, it is important for us to do it till the end without giving up and to hold on to it intentionally.

YOON Jongyeoun: We have some basic elements: to try to use an objet anyway, to play by adopting a concept of a theatrical game and to go against the existing balance and gravity. Going beyond this, we get diverse and unexpected stories, memories and experiences depending on where objets and actors’ bodies are placed and what their states and differences are. Approaching themes in this way, Momggol imagines horrible and cruel things rather than fun and joyful ones. The former stimulates and intrigues me further. Earlier, I mentioned “nightmare” and it gives us many ideas and allows us to make many attempts.

I first came to the studio in Munrae-dong because the rentwas not burdensome. The studio is large so many people came to see us, enabling us to forming networks. That is why the space is meaningful. Such networks have been greatly beneficial for us. The Munrae-dong area has many artists and it still has the steel industry which has been there for a long time. Indeed, it is in the area’s steel factories that we designed and made materials and tools for our works. So the local area greatly influenced our works and our living patterns. The Wandering Festival first started in Munare-dong. At this festival whose venue changes every year, ten street arts companies created and presented their works in a specific space. Their works were also connected under the common theme. The artists met the audience by experimenting with different ways of observing places and cities. After its beginning in Munrae-dong, the festival changed its venue every year, leading the artists to study and create together to present performances. It may look tiring and inefficient to create new works every time through joint research and to discuss endlessly in such aprocess. But I believe that a creator needs to insist on such an unproductive method of creation. Such an idea is also having a strong influence on the work we currently produce. Unfortunately, the Wandering Festival isn’t held anymore. I still want to make something that is not commercialized easily. But it seems that I came to live a life focused on efficiency comped to the past. So I’m considering changing our patterns of creation and research again.

YOON Jongyeoun: Momggol is seeking a new way of creation. The production methods based on strictness and authority that theater companies had before need to be overturned to beable to tell stories for today’s audience. In other words, it is time for us to restructure and redesign our methods of creation to continue our work. It is true that we have already done many things in the name of Momggol but we are willing to make and continue other stories and things through changes and attempts.

Street Arts
#wandering_about_the_streets

Street
#don’t_know_what_I_lost #groping_around_after_losing_my_destination

Editor’s Note
1. After Mr. Baek Nam-gi, a participant of the South Korean protests of 2015, died despite his innocence,protests continued in 2016.

*Photo Credit: ©Momggol(photo1,2,3), ©Daiyoon Lim(photo 4,5)