This is a story about an Equatorial Guinean woman in London. Her name is Monica Mening Macias Bindan. She is the youngest daughter of Francisco Macias Nguema, the first president of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. In 1979, her father sent Monica to Kim Il Sung of North Korea and became Kim Il Sung’s adopted daughter. She lived in Pyongyang for 16 years, receiving her North Korean elite education while losing her mother language. In 2013, she published her autobiography I am Monica in Pyongyang in South Korea. This book tells the story of her childhood in North Korea and the journey of her life since she left North Korea. The first piece is a documentary theater that links several episodes related to her identity based on the autobiography. This play talks about how political environments have formed her unique personal identity. Born in a difficult political situation in Equatorial Guinea and grew up in North Korea, Monica became a Equatorial Guinean with a North Korean identity. Monica’s confession about her life in this play is a “Faction”, combining Monica’s storytelling about her real experience and the artist’s imagination.

Programme Schedule

Performance
December 23, 2017, Saturday
6:00 pm
Performer: Monica Macias

Screening&Talk
December 30, 2017, Saturday
4:00 pm
Panel: Hyun-Suk Seo
Carey Park, CHE Onejoon

Performance, Original Story: Monica Macias
After leaving Pyongyang in 1994, in order to understand societies Monica lived in New York, Madrid and Soul.
Currently, after publishing her biography I am Monica in Pyongyang in 2013, she is studying MA in International Study and Diplomacy at SOAS, London.

About Director
CHE Onejoon, a visual artist and filmmaker, started his career as an evidence photographer. For Texas Project (2004-2008), Che photographed the declining red-light district in Miari in Seoul after the government initiated the anti-prostitution law in 2004. He also made short films and archives that capture the trauma of the modern Korean history by documenting the bunkers during the post-Korean War period and the abandoned U.S. Army camps in South Korea after the Iraq War. In recent years, Che produced a documentary project Mansudai Master Class which is about the monuments and statues made by North Korea in Africa. Starting with this project, he is currently creating a documentary theater, a film, an installation about the North Korean propaganda culture and identity. Che has participated in the Taipei Biennial, the Palais de Tokyo modules, SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul, the Venice Architecture Biennale Korean Pavilion, the New Museum Triennial, etc. He is currently a fellow artist at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.