Christine Sun Kim

[RSVP](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cag-christine-sun-kim-presents-who-framed-roger-rabbit-1988-tickets-1984437752738 "button")

This spring, the Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to present *Previously Viewed*, a series of artist-curated film screenings. Inviting artists from CAG’s recent and upcoming programming to present films that have been formative to their thinking and practice in some way, each screening is a one-night-only event centered on a single feature-length work.

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Christine Sun Kim has selected *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* (1988).

> I was eight when *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* came out, and it had a big impact on how I tell stories and how I look for connections. It centered on an almost non-existent group of characters known as the Toons of Toontown. The town exists only within Hollywood and was under threat of being erased, or “dipped.” The Toons found themselves threatened by outside forces and changes they struggled to adapt to. Meanwhile non-Toons called the shots. Ultimately, however, the Toons prevailed. Perhaps this reminded me of the constant battles we disabled people face against society and all the ableist laws and mindsets that try to erase us. Much of my art aims to stake a position of visibility and permanence amid a pervasive ableist culture that is sometimes subtle and subconscious and sometimes overt and in your face. So I identify with the Toons and their antic struggles to evade being dipped. 

> I have to give a big shout out to Christopher Lloyd for his role as the supervillain Judge Doom. *Back to the Future* was released in 1985, *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* in 1988, and *Back to the Future Part II* in 1989, placing Roger Rabbit squarely between the two Future films. Seeing Lloyd shift from the good scientist Doc to this deranged and terrifying villain and then back again was seared into my memory. It’s just acting, but young me saw this as a spectrum of human morality, from diligent heroism to true darkness. It’s important to note that this film was made in the ’80s and is full of misogynistic stereotypes and damaging Hollywood tropes, which really stood out to me when I recently rewatched it. But I can’t deny its impact on me.

> -Christine Sun Kim 

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Run time: 104 minutes.

### RSVP
Registration for this event is encouraged; tickets are free. Secure your seat [here](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cag-christine-sun-kim-presents-who-framed-roger-rabbit-1988-tickets-1984437752738). 

Rush tickets will also be made available the day of the event, starting at 6:45pm. 

### Accessibility
This event will be held in CAG’s B.C. Binning Gallery, which is wheelchair accessible. Additional accessibility information can be found [here](https://cagvancouver.org/visit/accessibility). This film will be presented with closed captioning. 

###  Biography
Christine Sun Kim has crafted a renowned practice that considers how sound operates in society, deconstructing the politics of sound and exploring how oral languages operate as social currency. Musical notation, written language, infographics, American Sign Language (ASL), the use of the body, and strategically deployed humor are all recurring elements in her practice. Working across drawing, performance, video and large scale murals, Kim explores her relationship to spoken and signed languages, to her built and social environments, and to the world at large.

Kim has exhibited and performed internationally, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2025); Gwangju Biennale (2023); Secession, Vienna (2023); Queens Museum, New York (2022); the Drawing Center, New York (2022); the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2021); Manchester International Festival, Manchester (2021); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2020); Whitney Biennial, New York (2019); Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo (2019); Art Institute of Chicago (2018); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2017); De Appel Arts Center, Amsterdam (2017); Berlin Biennale (2016); Shanghai Biennale (2016); MoMA PS1, New York (2015) and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013), among numerous others. Kim’s awards and fellowships include an MIT Media Lab Fellowship, a United States Artists fellowship, a Ford and Mellon Foundations’ Disabilities Future Fellowship, and the Prix International d’Art Contemporain of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco. Her works are held in numerous prominent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, LACMA, Tate Britain, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.

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Christine Sun Kim presents Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1998)

Previously Viewed

Please join us to celebrate CAG's fall 2022 exhibitions, *Christine Sun Kim: Oh Me Oh My* and *Tanya Lukin Linklater: My mind is with the weather*. 

All ages welcome. Cash bar.

No advance registration required for this event.

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Kim, Why Most of My Hearing Friends Do Not Sign, 2019 (CSK 19.014) D.jpg

Fall 2022

Opening Reception

This spring, the Contemporary Art Gallery is pleased to present a series of artist-curated film screenings at the gallery. Inviting five artists from CAG’s recent and upcoming programming to present films that have been formative to their thinking and practice in some way, each screening is a one-night-only event centered on a single feature-length work.

Thursday, March 19
[Abbas Akhavan presents *Before Night Falls* (2000)](https://cagvancouver.org/event/screening-abbas-akhavan-presents-before-night-falls-(2000))

Saturday, March 21
[Christine Sun Kim presents *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* (1988)](https://cagvancouver.org/event/screening-christine-sun-kim-presents-who-framed-roger-rabbit-(1988))

Tuesday, March 24
[Ser Serpas presents *Lake Mungo* (2008)](https://cagvancouver.org/event/screening-ser-serpas-presents-lake-mungo-(2008))

Thursday, March 26 
[Faye HeavyShield presents *Of Mice and Men* (1939)](https://cagvancouver.org/event/screening-faye-heavyshield-presents-of-mice-and-men-(1939))

Saturday, March 28
[gabi dao presents *A Useful Ghost* (2025)](https://cagvancouver.org/event/screening-gabi-dao-presents-a-useful-ghost-(2025))

### RSVP
Tickets to all screenings are free. Registration is encouraged; RSVP links for each screening are available through the links above. 

### Accessibility
Screenings will be held in CAG’s B.C. Binning Gallery, which is wheelchair accessible. All films — with the exception of *Of Mice and Men* (1939) — will be presented with closed captioning. Additional accessibility information can be found [here](https://cagvancouver.org/visit/accessibility). 

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Artists' Screening Series

For more than ten years now, Christine Sun Kim has been engaged expansively with the ways sound is understood, experienced and valued. Upending the notion of the sonic as a solely auditory occurrence, the California-born, Berlin-based artist foregrounds sound’s visual, spatial and political properties across a variety of mediums including drawing, video, performance, and installation. Exploring and employing elements of American Sign Language (ASL) — the artist’s first language — alongside other visual communication systems such as musical notation, infographics and memes, the formal vocabulary of Kim’s work is a singular one, engaging with critical precision and deadpan humour the politics of language, listening and voice. 

In *Oh Me Oh My*, Kim brings together a broad selection of recent drawings, along with a new large-scale mural and two public artworks installed on the CAG Façade and at nearby Yaletown-Roundhouse Station. Whether diagramming the structural and cultural underpinnings of seemingly personal decisions, tracing social debts to consider what we owe one another, or mapping the distortions and delays inherent to Deaf/hearing communication, Kim’s works challenge widely held hierarchies that tether voice inextricably to sound, disrupting the implicit authority of the spoken over the signed and the aural over other perceptual planes.

*Christine Sun Kim: Oh Me Oh My* is co-organized by the Contemporary Art Gallery, Remai Modern, the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, and the Gund Gallery at Kenyon College.

*Christine Sun Kim: Debt Debt Debt* is presented in partnership with the Canada Line Public Art Program — InTransit BC.

### Biography
Christine Sun Kim (b. 1980, California) has exhibited and performed internationally, including at Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Whitney Museum, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; De Appel Arts Center, Amsterdam; the Berlin Biennale; the Shanghai Biennale; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, among many others. Kim was awarded an inaugural Disability Futures Fellowship by the Ford Foundation as well as an MIT Media Lab Fellowship and a TED Senior Fellowship. She lives and works in Berlin.

CAG_FallProgramGuide2022_WEB.pdf

CAG_ChristineSunKim_ExhibitionGuide_RegularPrint_WEB.pdf

CAG_ChristineSunKim_ExhibitionGuide_LargePrint_WEB.pdf

A large pencil drawing depicting a venn diagram with three overlapping circles. “When Grammar Mood” is written along the top of the diagram in block text.

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Kim, When Grammar Mood, 2020 (CSK 20.030) A.jpg

Entryway into a gallery with two drawings by Christine Sun Kim visible on an interior wall. Drawings each feature curved black shapes on a white background.

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Christine Sun Kim 2022 01.jpg

Four black and white drawings by Christine Sun Kim on a wall with an opening, through which a wall painting featuring the word "point" and three other drawings by Kim are visible.

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Christine Sun Kim 2022 02.jpg

Two black and white drawings by Christine Sun Kim on a wall with an opening, through which a wall painting featuring the word "point" and three other drawings by Kim are visible.

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Christine Sun Kim 2022 03.jpg

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Christine Sun Kim 2022 04.jpg

Three line drawings by Christine Sun Kim on a white wall, each featuring curved descending lines. One drawing features the words "owe owe owe."

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Four drawings by Christine Sun Kim depicting pie charts arranged around the corner of adjoining white walls.

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Three drawings by Christine Sun Kim depicting pie charts.

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Three drawings by Christine Sun Kim, variously depicting pie charts and venn diagrams. The drawing in the foreground features the words "when grammar mood."

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Christine Sun Kim 2022 08.jpg

Seven small drawings by Christine Sun Kim depicting graphic notations arranged in a broken grid on a white wall, with a large drawing of a venn diagram on the adjoining wall to the left.

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A wall drawing by Christine Sun Kim featuring the word "point" and curved black shapes on a white background, with two similar drawings by Kim hung on top of it.

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Christine Sun Kim 2022 10.jpg

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Three line drawings by Christine Sun Kim arranged across a corner on white walls. One drawing features a venn diagram and the words "pronouns in american sign language."

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Christine Sun Kim 2022 14.jpg

Four line drawings by Christine Sun Kim on a white wall bisected by a wall with an opening, which also has a drawing by Kim on it.

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Facade of CAG with with two rows of windows visible in frame. Black and white drawings by Christine Sun Kim featuring the word "echoing" across the windows.

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Facade of CAG with four windows in a 4 by 4 grid visible in frame. Black and white drawings by Christine Sun Kim featuring the word "echo" across the windows.

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Christine Sun Kim 2022 22.jpg

Image of CAG behind two trees, with black and white drawings by Christine Sun Kim across the gallery's windows.

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Oh Me Oh My

In this monograph, Christine Sun Kim's work is explored through essays, short texts and reflections, an interview and abundant large-scale images of the artist's work. Kim, whose first language is American Sign Language (ASL), uses elements from various information systems, such as musical notation, infographics and ASL, to develop a dryly humorous visual vocabulary in a variety of mediums, including performance, drawing, video, lectures and more. She aims to draw attention to the power imbalances between the hearing world and the Deaf community, as well as to celebrate the generative possibilities and creative energy that can arise from interactions between people with different positionalities and modes of communication.

Christine Sun Kim

Exhibitions

Talks & Events

Publications & Editions