Jisun Myung : Miyeokguk Project in Performing the Edible (Routledge, 2026)
Jisun Myung wrote 'Chapter 7: Communion of a Bowl of Seaweed Soup with Familiar Strangers: from Mukbang to Live Performance in the Miyeokguk Project' of "Performing the Edible: Sustenance, Sensation, and Sustainability" edited by Kristin Hunt (Routledge, 2026). This article is about of her recent performance piece that explores Korean women diaspora's reproductive stories.
Miyeokguk Project is a multi sensory installation and performance centering Korean women diaspora’s voices/stories on reproduction. ‘Miyeokguk (미역국)’ is a seaweed soup that you need to eat on your birthday. Korean women usually eat this soup for about a month when they give birth to a child. That means, on your birthday, you eat the same soup that your mother ate after the labor.
For the women in their childbearing age, or those who have experienced childbirth, the meaning of Miyeokguk changes dramatically from a ‘delicious birthday soup’ to something else. Jisun interviewed 25 Korean women diaspora to collect their stories and create various artistic iterations including video in virtual space, visual installations in gallery space, and multi sensory interactive performance piece in 2021.
This article is about conception of idea and early stage of interviews and making performance out of it. This is her first academy publishing. Order the book