They say that just before you enter heaven you’ll see your life pass before your eyes. Usually imagined as a fast-forward flip book of sentimental still images: birth, parents, school, holiday, first girlfriend, first sex, job, wife, kids, etc. and all the little things in between, summating a totality of meagre existence in a split second flash.
Yeondoo Jung, however, is a man who likes to take a bit of time with things, savour every precious moment, sit back and enjoy the ride.
Documentary Nostalgia is a one-take one-chance-only performance shot in real time. No stops, no pauses. This is Jung’s magnificent autobiography. Birthday party clown tricks, slapstick humour, cartoon exaggeration, and the clumsy ‘special effects’ of silent movie cliche; Jung draws from all the low-fi mysteries of childhood delight to reconstruct his own reality.
Not as it was, but as he prefers to remember it, a make-shift mythology in its conception, wide-eyed, innocent, and confounding.
He offers the possibility of not one existence, but many: to be urban and rural, contemporary or ancient, Eastern or Western, to be anywhere or anything at all. Everyone can do this simply by daring to dream.
Artist: Yeondoo Jung