A Practice of Many: A Conversation with Christine Sun Kim

For more than a decade, artist Christine Sun Kim has transformed the ways audiences think about sound, language, communication, and access. Working across drawing, performance, video, and large-scale murals, Kim explores how sound operates socially and politically—often through musical notation, written language, American Sign Language (ASL), and humor. Her work considers everything from institutional access and interpretation to intimacy, motherhood, and the emotional architecture of communication itself. 

On the occasion of All Day All Night, her exhibition at the Walker Art Center, Kim spoke with curatorial assistant Brandon Eng about building a life in art, translating experience into visual language, the collaborative nature of her practice, and why “sharing is enough.”

BRANDON ENG: When did you realize you were an artist?

CHRISTINE SUN KIM: Ever since I was young, I knew I was an artist. However, life took me on a different path. People discouraged me from becoming an artist, and I faced barriers and limited resources until I moved to New York City. That’s when I started taking it seriously.

I came from an older framework of what art-making meant—that it was something you did on the side as a hobby. Then I moved to New York and realized I could take this seriously, and people could take me seriously, too. I could make a living from art. I started seeing shows, visiting museums, meeting artists, and understanding the possibilities for my life.

ENG: What’s the best advice you’ve received?

KIM: While I was studying for my second MFA in sound and music at Bard College, Marina Rosenfeld, a professor there, gave me advice that sticks with me to this day. Working in sound—a very specific field, full of white men—as an Asian woman can be intimidating. Sometimes I wonder: How am I going to work with this technology? How am I going to make this happen?

She told me, “Just do it. You learn as you go, even if you’re starting from scratch. That’s how I did it.”

At the time, that felt impossible. But over the years I’ve been fortunate to work with amazing teams, makers, and interpreters, and I’m always learning. Even when I have a clear vision, I rely on people around me to help make things happen. I really appreciate that advice she gave me those many years ago, so thanks, Marina.

ENG: What does a typical day in your studio look like?

KIM:Oh, I wish I was one of those artists with a structured daily routine: Wake up, get coffee, go to the studio, work all day. I thrive on flexibility and going with the flow. As a mom with two kids, I have to wing it all the time. If things go awry at school or one of them gets sick, I need to be able to pivot.

ENG: Can you talk a little more about the heavier studio times?

KIM: When I’m in heavy studio working mode, I become very efficient. I often have one idea in mind, like a big question I’m looking to answer, and I’ll create ten different answers to that or ten different drawings—any question could have possibly ten different solutions or different perspectives; it’s not one specific answer.

Often I’ll work throughout the morning, and I’m so immersed in what I do, I forget to eat. I’ll work through the day and into the night and then I’ll go home covered in charcoal dust, smudges on my face and on my hands and on my clothes.

ENG: What keeps you going?

KIM: I think about two things. First, it’s easy to become obsessed with little things, revisiting small details—how I said this, what I did about that, replaying things over and over—and then maybe creating work from that.

The second is my partner, Thomas Mader. We work really well together as a team raising our two children. We take turns supporting each other’s travel and work, and he makes it possible for me to keep going as a mom and as an artist.

ENG: Can you share some of the values that guide your work?

KIM: My practice isn’t a practice of one. It’s a group effort, a team effort; it takes many. I work with interpreters, agents, gallerists, curators, writers. It’s how I’ve been able to progress my career and continue growing.

I value kindness, making time for people, and working together.

Another important idea—maybe not a value—is my access rider, which helps frame how I want my work discussed and approached. Many people I work with may have never met a deaf person before, so the rider acts almost like a crash course: terminology to use or avoid, how to work with interpreters, and how to conduct interviews. I share it with everyone I work with.

ENG: What’s inspiring you lately?

KIM: My two daughters. My older daughter made her first comic book last year, and I helped her print copies to share with her friends. It was a really special moment to see her storytelling develop. I love watching how kids’ brains think and operate.

My younger daughter is acquiring language now and learning new signs and new words. Watching my kids grow and their language grow is really one of the most fun parts of being a mom.

ENG: How did the work Ghost(ed) Notes come about?

KIM: As a disabled person, I always struggle with the idea of institutional access, whether that’s at a museum, a college, or a business. I often approach situations feeling anxious: Will they provide interpreters? Will there be captions? I constantly feel like I have to reach out.

Those feelings became Ghost(ed) Notes.

I often use musical notes, almost like characters. The staff lines are fixed structures, especially from a Western musical perspective: Higher frequencies are on top; lower frequencies are below. It’s almost as if the notes are people navigating those systems. It’s like a story, a lived experience. You’ll see the staff line move around—even avoid—that note or that person. People spend so much time and effort figuring out those staff lines, those actions of avoidance, or working to bend them, even though they’re supposed to be “fixed.” If you’re not on the staff lines, you’ve been ghosted or denied, or your request has been ignored.

ENG: How did you first start using musical notation in your work?

KIM: I started with the idea about sound, and then the notes came along after a lot of experimentation. This was during my years at Bard College. I spent a lot of time reading and watching my classmates perform from staff lines and music and discussing scores. Eventually I realized notes don’t necessarily have to represent specific sounds. They can be more about what I envision, more parallel with sign language. I’m the score, and the interpreter is full of notes, sending that sound out.

ENG: Can you tell us about the title Ghost(ed) Notes?

KIM: That term “ghosted” originated in internet dating culture, but now, people use it in all kinds of situations. I borrowed the term because it’s such a common shared experience. I often work with words and texts, things that I feel apply to everyday life.

ENG: How did you decide to make this work into a mural?

KIM: My interest in large-scale work started when Jennie Goldstein, a curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, reached out to me about a billboard project on the High Line. I had just given birth and had never worked at that scale before.

I had a piece called Too Much Future, which is shaped like two arcs. It’s based on the ASL sign for “future.” I thought, “Hm, maybe I can scale this up.” So, I drew it, scaled it up high-res, and it was installed on the High Line in New York. That was the first time I experienced working on such a large scale and realized that my work is scalable. This opened so many doors for me.

Now I work closely with Jake Kent and other muralists. I’ll explain to him how I want the piece to go, and he figures out how to make it happen. Usually, I’ll receive photos or videos of the space, sketch them on my iPad, then move everything to Photoshop to figure out placement. Sometimes, architecture changes the whole experience of the work—which is very fun but very challenging. Once the final drawing is ready, Jake, or another muralist, executes it while sending me updates throughout the process. That’s how we create a mural.

ENG:What makes a work successful at that scale?

KIM: It depends on two things: What’s the concept we’re trying to share or to show? Sometimes the concept doesn’t fit. Also, the location. What’s the size of the space and its history? But I always go as big as possible.

ENG: How did The Star-Spangled Banner come about?

KIM: When the National Association of the Deaf invited me to perform at the 2020 Super Bowl, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it because the NFL carries political weight. But I decided to take on the challenge.

I studied the national anthem and the words. I wanted to envision when this piece was written and the words that were chosen—even if maybe some of them I didn’t really agree with. I tried my best to capture that moment in history and to create a translation from the written English to American Sign Language. Fortunately, I had deaf peers who gave me feedback on videos of my translation. I also wanted to make sure it was timed right.

Attending the Super Bowl was a great experience, but I was nervous as heck. I stood up to give my performance of “America the Beautiful” and the national anthem. I worked hard with another interpreter. We had to develop our own system of cueing because I wanted to make sure that my interpretation was in sync and keeping time with the person singing this song.

After that Super Bowl experience, the pandemic hit, and we were all in lockdown. I was obsessively thinking about this translation and all the work that I had just put into it, and I started thinking about putting those thoughts on paper. I thought about the notes and the staff lines, like the stars and stripes on the flag itself. I would create notations, which were really cues to me on how to produce my translation in sign language and how to use my signing space to create this performance.

ENG: Did this change how you feel about the national anthem?

KIM: The camera panned away during my performance at the Super Bowl, and the whole sign performance was not accessible. They didn’t have an actual file of the performance. Fortunately, somebody had filmed it on their phone, but it wasn’t well-documented. I felt like it needed to be documented somehow, which is partly why I created this work. I feel like if you don’t fully archive something, it doesn’t hold a place in history, and it was important to archive this.

ENG: Can you talk about the role translation or interpretation plays in your practice more broadly?

KIM: All my life, I’ve worked with professional sign language interpreters and with my family members, including my husband and my kids now, or friends who will often speak on my behalf. I’ve learned that translation and interpretation can be very loose. There’s a difference between translation and interpretation. Interpretation is simultaneous; it’s happening in the moment. The gist is there, hopefully.

The translation process gives you more time. You can stop and think, “What does this term mean?” You can think about the context, when this happened in history, in time. With the luxury of time, you can create a translation with accuracy. And each sentence has its own culture, intention, or meaning, if you will. For me, the shape or the form or the words are not important if the core message remains the same and intact. And I feel the same with my work and creating my work.

ENG: What’s do you hope viewers take away from your work?

KIM:It’s more about having the opportunity to make some new work and to share. Sharing is enough for me. Sharing feels like a very vulnerable process, and when I share, you can take away whatever you think or interpret what you think it means.

ENG: What would you like to be known for?

KIM: Right now, at this point in my life, I’m hoping that people view me as someone who’s trying their best as a mom, as an artist, and bringing weight to our deafness in human history.

[Interpreted by Denise Kahler-Braaten and Beth Staehle]