Abstract
Goreum/Ties was a cross-cultural, multidisciplinary theatre project that explored memory, identity, and belonging. Developed during a residency at Incheon Art Platform in collaboration with Fremantle Arts Centre, the work marked my first return to Korea in 35 years. This journey allowed me to reconnect with my ten-year-old self and reassemble the fragments of memory into performance. Blending theatre, video, sound, and fabric as transformative media, the project engaged audiences in a tapestry of cultural perspectives that shape remembrance. I drew on Stanislavski’s concept of emotional memory to filter my childhood in South Korea into poetic reflection. My experiences as a child who lived between cultures, never fully belonging to one place, have profoundly shaped both my identity and my art. Standing once more in the garden of my old house or at the Olympic stadium became deeply embodied moments of recognition and belonging. These sites of memory grounded the performance in lived experience while opening them to collective resonance. The work draws inspiration from obangsaek (Korean colour theory), the spirit of 1980s Seoul, and the Korean concept of shim (heart-mind), weaving myth, history, and memory into a layered performance that meditates on what it means to belong.
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2025
Publication Title
Stanislavski Studies
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
School
Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Conte, S. (2025). Tying the Goreum: Using Stanislavsky’s concept of emotional memory to capture a childhood. Stanislavski Studies, 13(2), 169–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/20567790.2025.2563310