Sumin Kim

Artist Statement

A Person Sits Before A Tidal Wave is asingle-channeled 2D animation about a person’s experience of encounteringhardship and overcoming it. The plot focuses on a person being swept by a tidalwave and then getting out of the water eventually. 

The mainconcept of this project is unstableness, which is embedded in the film both inthe plot and in visual features. The protagonist is unstable and fatigued asshe fails to do what she wants to do. Visually, it was achieved by adding asense of instability with colour, lines and scattered photographs in the scene.The colour changes according to the protagonist’s emotional state and position.Animated lines wobble and flicker from time to time, while they are supposed tobe on the screen to illustrate the character’s internal turmoil. The scatteredphotographs, which are meant to be parts of photo collages, might be merelymaking a mess throughout the film. However, this project is not only aboutdisplaying unstableness. It is also asking questions about what the personwould do about it. After the wave, when she is back to where she used to be,what is left with her?

A PersonSits Before A Tidal Wave is inspired by mypersonal process when being lethargic and melancholy. I thought about thosefeelings regarding what I do when they get closer, and what I do when theyarrive. This film is nuanced, gentle and reflective, to mirror the ways I get lostin my thoughts and the efforts I take to find my way back to a more stablereality. Through making this film, my hope is to connect with others who maystruggle with their own questions of instability.

In thepersonal experiences I used as the reference, memory took an important role. Torepresent memory, photo collage has been a crucial medium for this project.Photo collage, visually and technically, has allowed me to easily introducevarious textures into the scenes. But as in the conceptual part, photo-collagehas a significant role in bringing in ‘photo’ and ‘collage’. Photographs are ameans of visual documentation, and they show a moment in the past. A collage isused when a person collects things to create another piece from them. Theconcept of collecting the document of the past and seeing and creating meaningfrom it was what I wanted to embed in this project.

Photo collage also takes part in building up the surrealistic mood.Surrealism in this film provides a dream-like atmosphere. 'Dream', a vulnerablesubconscious space, is where a person can face fear and cure it. This isdepicted in the latter part of the film when the person submerges in the water.The strong orange and red colours suddenly disappear in the next scene, whichis inspired by sunsets followed by dark nights. At nighttime, the person wouldfall asleep and recharge herself. And when the alarm clock rings, she would bedragged out of sleep, back to life again.