Kimsooja's four-channel video installation A Needle Woman-Mexico City, Cairo, Lagos, London is projected onto four walls of a room, so that the viewer is actually in the center of the installation. All four projections show the same woman (the artist). She stands with her back to the viewer in the busy pedestrian zones of four different cities: Mexico City, Cairo, Lagos, London. The passersby walk towards and past her. Standing in front of the projection, the viewer sees everything from the same perspective as the artist. Kimsooja always wears the same grey clothing, her black hair tied back in a ponytail. Since her face is not visible, the simplicity of her appearance seems like a kind of placeholder, an 'identification space' or a gap into which the viewer can project himself. The people in each city have similar facial features, skin and hair color, and seem like a homogenous mass compared with the artist who, by standing isolated in the middle of the crowd, presents a stark contrast to it. [...]

Susanne Touw


Catalogue excerpt
fast forward 2. The Power of Motion
Media Art Sammlung Goetz
Editors: Ingvild Goetz and Stephan Urbaschek
Ostfildern, Hatje Cantz, 2010

Kimsooja, A Needle Woman - Mexico City, Cairo, Lagos, London, 2000/01
4-channel video installation, color, without sound
Edition 4/4 (+ 2 a. p.)
6' 33"