Join us for a performance by Ibanjiha, held in conjunction with Spectrosynthesis Seoul.

Ibanjiha, The Making of a “Normal” Family, 2023/2026, lecture performance, 60 min.

Concept & Director: Ibanjiha
Performer: Ibanjiha

Ibanjiha, the author of Ibanjiha, a Queer Nextdoor (2021), was scheduled to deliver a talk at Nammok Library in Ulsan on July 15, 2023, only to face cancellation due to complaints from conservative Christian groups. This triggered an intense outcry from the queer community, leading the library to suggest a “neutral compromise”: the talk could proceed only if the words “queer,” “gender,” and “homosexuality” were excluded. The artist accepted these contradictory conditions, transforming the talk event into an ironic performance titled The Making of a Normal Family.
Disguised as a “normalcy speaker,” the artist shared a vision for building a “normal family,” a “normal society,” and a “normal Republic of Korea.”

In connection with Spectrosynthesis Seoul, this performance presents a newly adapted version of the “normalcy speaker,” shaped in response to the specific context of Seoul and the site of Art Sonje Center. The work offers a defamiliarizing spin on the civic education formats used to enforce norms regarding family and gender roles. The performance creates a space where both those who oppose queer existence and the supporters of Ibanjiha can engage in their own ways, using the artist’s distinctive humor and queer aesthetic to facilitate an unlikely coexistence between disparate communities.

Ibanjiha
Ibanjiha (b. 1981, Korea) works across themes of patriarchy, queerness, gender, and media. The name combines iban (sexual minority) and banjiha (semi-basement), reflecting the precarious space where the artist’s queer and creative identity took shape. Since 2004, Ibanjiha has produced work across painting, drawing, animation, publishing, and YouTube, developing a distinctive queer aesthetic that creates ruptures within a gender-binary order.