Yan Tomaszewski

Film

Oli London is a young Englishman fascinated by South Korea, and in particular by Jimin, a singer in the K-pop group BTS, whose international popularity is generating something close to a cult phenomenon. For several years, Oli London has been engaged in a process of transforming his body and identity in order to become one with his Korean idol. This means not only aesthetic surgery on the face but also the determination to become a K-pop star. Today, he is adulated by some and hated by others, who accuse him of appropriation and cultural fetishism.
The film stages the development of his identity via a Korean tale from the 13th century, the legend of a young sculptor who was commanded by the gods to produce a series of masks unseen by any man on pain of death – a prohibition that, fatally, was transgressed. This tale accompanies a tradition of shamanic mask dances which are still performed today in the village of Hahoe.
By embodying two characters form the tale, Oli London metaphorically tells his own story, but also that of the contemporary plasticity of digital identities and idolatry.

Yan Tomaszewski

Yan Tomaszewski is a Franco-Polish artist who works at the intersection of sculpture, installation and cinema. His films have been shown at FID Marseille, at DocLisboa at the Rencontres Internationales Paris Berlin. He has had solo exhibitions at the Archaeological Musem in Krakow, the Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace in Le Bourget, and the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp. He has taken part in numerous group shows, notably at the Fondation Hippocrène, at the Centre Pompidou and at Manifesta 9. In 2019 he was nominated for the Prix Sciences Po pour l’art contemporain.

Production

Credits

Acknowledgments

Ugo Arsac, Sylvie Beauquentin, Arthur Brouard, Cindy Coutant, Pierre Delplanque, Kelly Depuydt, Inès Dovergne, Alice Goudon, Nicolas Gourault, Camille Honorez, Ah Young Kim, Kyung Wan Kim, So Yeon Leem, Oli London, Roxane Loyot, Mónica Martinez Poras, Yosra Mojtahedi, Manu Park, Mariam Radwan, Emilie Rosati, Ho-Chul Ryu, Olivier Sola, Ewa & Marek Tomaszewski, Victor Zébo