ISSUE NO. 6: Always Working Always Beautiful | Theresa Hak Kyung Cha ∞
“The ink spills thickest before it runs dry before it stops writing at all.”
ARCHIVIST’S NOTE
“Why resurrect it all now. From the Past. History, the old wound. The past emotions all over again. To confess to relive the same folly. To name it now so as not to repeat history in oblivion. To extract each fragment by each fragment from the word from the image another word another image the reply that will not repeat history in oblivion.” —Theresa Hak Kyung Cha 차학경 (March 4, 1951, 1915–November 5, 1982), Dictée
Dear Readers,
For the archive, and personally, I’ve paused to rest and re-focus. There was recovery. There will be repair. I’m working on it! Thank you for sticking around as things continue to evolve.
Many of you reached out and kindly asked me to include more pages from the book I featured in ISSUE NO. 5: The Words Made Flesh | Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. I am happily obliging.
For ISSUE NO. 6: Always Working Always Beautiful | Theresa Hak Kyung Cha ∞, I am archiving more beautiful pages of a book I’ve been chasing for almost a decade. A wondrous compilation of love letters, poetry, photos, and art by Theresa’s loved ones, published in November 1983, to honor her life. I am grateful that nowadays you can simply Google Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and learn so much about her. When I first discovered her work as an undergrad in 1999 at a (then) small-ish liberal arts college in Texas, it was like moving mountains. Mountains comprised of canisters of microfiche, to uncover absolutely nothing, on most days.
At a time when so many seismic issues are direly in need of action and support, I continue to be grateful that you are here. Thank you to everyone who has already contributed. You are my big nudge to keep going. If this work has compelled or held you in any way, please consider chipping in with a paid subscription. When I say work, I refer to the entire body dating back to 1996—over 500 women I profiled on Instagram from 2016–2020, the research, the acquisitions, the restoration, the invisible labor—not only this newsletter.
♡
Doris
ARCHIVE NO. 9, Vol. 1: THERESA HAK KYUNG CHA 차학경 (March 4, 1951–November 5, 1982)
