Mudam presents the European premiere of I Do Nine-Tailed Fox, a new work by Seoul-based artist Sojung Jun (1982, Busan). Weaving together live music with archival footage and newly produced film material, the performance revisits the history of the Koryo theatre in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Founded in Vladivostok in 1932 by the Koryo-saram, the cultural institute relocated with the ethnic Korean community when it was forcibly displaced from the Soviet Union’s Far East to Central Asia in 1937. The theatre remains active today as a living archive of survival and transformation.

In the multimedia performance, Jun parallels this legacy with the East Asian gumiho, or nine-tailed fox. Often cast as a trickster or threat, the figure embodies adaptability and resilience – qualities that echo the histories of the Koryo-saram. Like the community that carried its theatre through exile, the nine-tailed fox resists disappearance by shifting form across time, geography and identity.

I Do Nine-Tailed Fox takes the shape of an opera in nine nonlinear chapters, set in a speculative future in 2075. The piece is guided by a ‘sound archaeologist’ who excavates and reassembles lost voices and times. While the performance is anchored in the Korean narrative form of pansori – entwining song, speech and percussion – Jun extends its sonic texture with instruments that move across and beyond Korean heritage.

In the video, Jun deploys AI to enhance the scenic transitions, placing the Koryo Theatre’s archival footage in animated dialogue with material from the present and the speculative future. Like the tricks of the nine-tailed fox, these sequences shapeshift across time, drawing on a wide range of cinematic techniques. What emerges from these fluid transitions and the musical score is not just an echo of archival images and footage, but the poetic potential to share untold stories that exist within the gaps of history and migration.

Curated by Léon Kruijswijk, assisted by Nicole Wittmann 

Artistic Direction + Moving Image: Sojung Jun 
Composer: Soo Jung Shin 
Composer: Célia Huet 
Conductor: Somee Kim 
Gayageum: Sunmin Lee 
Saenghwang: Hyo-young Kim 
Pansori: Su-min Eo 
Soprano: Seungeun Jee 
Theremin: Meike Degand 
Cello: Jack Overall 
Percussion: Jihun Yun 

I Do Nine-Tailed Fox by Sojung Jun is part of A Journey – Mudam Luxembourg’s 2026 performance programme. Taking the concept of a journey as both method and metaphor, the series brings together artists who navigate cultural memory, technological progress and embodied interpretation.

Biography: 

Sojung Jun (1982, Busan) has held solo exhibitions internationally including at Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2022); Atelier Hermès, Seoul (2020); SongEun Art Space, Seoul (2017); DOOSAN Gallery, Seoul (2015); and DOOSAN Gallery, New York (2014). She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions in institutions such as M HKA, Antwerp (2025); New Taipei Art Museum (2025); MMCA, Seoul (2023); Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2022); Nam June Paik Art Center, Yongin; Kunstmuseum Bern (2021); Ottawa Art Gallery; Seoul Museum of Art (2020); and Villa Vassilieff, Paris (2017). Her works are held in the collections of the MMCA, Seoul; Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; The National Museum of Art, Osaka; and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Sojung Jun lives and works in Seoul.

Acknowledgements:

Co-produced by Performa and Asia Society, in collaboration with Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean. The performance premiered at Performa 2025, where it was curated by Defne Ayas, Senior Curator-at-Large, Performa, and Director, Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, and Josefina Barcia, Hartwig Art Foundation Curatorial Fellow.

With additional support from Arts Council Korea