MIKHAIL KARIKIS | THE WAPPING PROJECT
25th May - 30 June
Wapping Hydraulic Power Station, London

SeaWomen presents a new body of work by Mikhail Karikis focusing on a community of female sea workers living on the N.Pacific island of Jeju - a volcanic rock between S.Korea, Japan and China. Operating outside the currents of modernisation, this old and fast diminishing community consists of 50-90 y/o women who dive to great depths with no oxygen supply to catch sea-food, collect seaweed and find pearls. Karikis’s immersive installation depicts the vocal practices of the women, including the unique sounds of their ancient and transgenerationally-transmitted breathing technique, their work-songs resonating in their camps, the noises of their democratic decision-making processes, and of other communal activities. The project witnesses the women’s insistence on sustainable practices operating outside the trend of industrialization; it observes their reversal of traditional gender-roles, their deep sense of community and egalitarianism, their collective economics, and sense of professional identity and purpose in later age.