If Revolution is a Sickness

The first monograph on Diane Severin Nguyen’s work – that considers how songs and shared histories are woven together across different times and places. 

If Revolution is a Sickness centers on a new film by Nguyen; set in Warsaw, Poland, and it loosely follows the character of an orphaned Vietnamese child who grows up to join a South Korean pop-inspired dance group. Popular within a subculture of Polish youth, the genre of K-pop is used by Nguyen as a vernacular structure as she traces a relationship between Eastern Europe and Asia that has roots in Cold War allegiances.

In addition to extensive imagery from the film and behind-the-scenes footage, the book also features essays by Cat Zhang on K-pop’s online communities and by Nathanäel on music, history, and geography; a pair of reflections on the film by curators Myriam Ben Salah and Sohrab Mohebbi; and a conversation between the artist and psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster. Also included with the book is a flexi-disc record featuring a song with music and lyrics co-written by Nguyen [publisher's note]

If Revolution is a Sickness was published in relation with the exhibitions of the works at SculptureCenter in New York and the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago.