filmtitle: Tracing Trades

length: 33, Mini DV, 2006

genre: Documentary

director: Jane Jin Kaisen

producer: Jane Jin Kaisen

synopsis: The film takes shape as an investigation of a trace: A Peter Paul Rubens drawing of a Korean man, who may have been the first Korean slave and adoptee to set foot on European ground. This leads to a critical revision of the history of international adoption as a postcolonial and humanistic welfare phenomena. The adoption traffic is put in relation to a larger narrative of migration, culture import, and human trafficking. These traces lead to a recount of Nordic colonialism, Orientalism, and the cultivation of exotic, foreign people exhibited in Tivoli and in Zoos. The revision of these photographic evidences of Danish nation building leads to a struggle about history and the right to reinterpret parts of the National history.

festivals: Malm� International Film Festival, Rethinking Nordic Colonialism, Seikei University, Kyunghee University, Ssamzie Space, Overgaden Institute for Concemporary Art

directorcontact: Jane Jin Kaisen

street: 132 North 5th St.

city/state/zip: Brooklyn, New York, 11211

emailaddress: janejinkaisen@yahoo.dk

website: www.janejinkaisen.org