Massage Shop Codes: Palace Kneading, 2026
Video performance, 6 minutes, color, 4K single-channel
How to decode a technology of care? The movement of kneading is to refuse the surface / hands insist there is more / more depth, more resistance, more history / memory is a physical fold of time / unfold it.
MSC: Palace Kneading is the first chapter of Massage Shop Codes - a project that studies the movements of migrant women who perform therapeutic massage work in Seoul despite legal restrictions that render their labor invisible and precarious.
Through movement and sound, Yon isolates and closely examines individual massage movements she previously collected through kinetic interviews conducted in massage shops. She treats each massage movement as a portal to oppressed histories and overlooked socio-political realities.
Massage Shop Codes seeks to build an embodied archive to document the movements of migrant massage workers engaged in intimate forms of care labor.
Direction: Yon Natalie Mik
Camera: Jueng Hye-jin
Movement Performance: Yon Natalie Mik
Vocal Performance: Eunsil Noh
Editing: Jueng Hye-jin, Yon Natalie Mik
Title & Credit Design: Hyunkyung Son
On-set Support: Jo Mal
Production Support: Arts Council Korea, Sue Jeong Ka, apexart
Residency Support: Momuro Salon, Bâtard Performing Arts Festival