Kim Hyesoon has published fourteen poetry collections: From The Autobiography of Death (2016), Phantom Pain of Wings (2019), and After Earth Dies, Who Will Moon Orbit? (2022), among others. Her anthologies have been translated into many languages and she has received multiple literary prizes.
Hans Ulrich Obrist is artistic director of the Serpentine, London. He was previously the curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show, World Soup (The Kitchen Show), in 1991, he has curated more than 350 exhibitions. Photo: Tyler Mitchell
Hans Ulrich ObristWhat is your most recent work?
Kim HyesoonFind my mom’s smell on a map of my country, smell my country.
HUOWhat is your unrealized project?
KHCreate my own periodic table of the elements.
HUODo you write poems?
KHI don’t write poetry. I do poetry.
HUOWhat have you forgotten?
KHMy milk teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeth.
HUOWhat is time?
KHThe desert, the rhythmic entity that pushes me into annihilation. The pain of infinite sequences.
HUOWhat is the first entry in your catalogue raisonné?
KHThe scene of my dad dying. My mom yelled at my dad in his coffin, What the fuck is this, then me yelling, What the fuck is this to my mom in her coffin.
HUOWhat is your favorite book?
KHAlways changing, but right now it’s The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector, where the main character is named Macabéa, which means Don’t die.
HUOWhat is your favorite movie?
KHAlexander Sokurov, Whispering Pages. This movie is a book.
HUOIs the mirror broken?
KHThe mirror isn’t broken yet. When the mirror is broken, there is no me, there is no you, there is no world. But when I write poetry, I enter a room without a mirror.
HUOWhy is there something rather than nothing?
KHWhy is there something rather than nothing?