Mum-choong
MJ Lee
I am from Korea, a country with the lowest birth rate in the world. A combination of social, political, and economic factors lead few to choose to have children. I made the decision to become a mother by convincing myself that I am in a relatively reasonable place for a child to grow up. However, after becoming a mum a kind of guilt wriggled beneath my consciousness. The word “Mum-choong” kept bubbling to the fore. It combines mum and “Choong,” or 虫 in Chinese characters. It means insect.
It translates literally as “Mum-roach”, a pejorative expression for an entitled woman of leisure. It refers to useless beings, such as parasites and pests, and provokes contempt in society. It is principally a banal collective term for a rude, selfish, and ignorant mother, and although it didn't originate to target all mothers, it has been extended and generalised to any mother and evokes feelings of hate.
Why is being a mum such a disrespected vocation?
Mum Choong is on display. Performing the very mundane domestic task of wiping the baby food off the window. The mum-choong is visually discovered when I have to use my tongue and strip off my clothes to clean. The mother’s humble self is uncovered step by step.
Two square metres of kitchen is where I spend most of my time from morning till night, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Mostly cooking, feeding, washing and cleaning. This tiny kitchen is my happy prison. Everyday is the same repetitive labour. Where things are invisibly accomplished, so is my invisible value as a domestic worker. I cannot stop continually swiping and shining the surfaces until it makes me feel catharsis.
If I cannot turn this labour into a tangible being, can I at least make it into an artwork?
The performance took place at 11am 11 May 2024.
Documentation of the performance and exhibition open 12 May, Mother’s Day.
