Berlin-based artist Christine Sun Kim explores the materiality of sound as well as the representation of spoken language, in relation to drawing, painting, and performance. Kim combines aspects of graphic and musical notation, body language, and ASL (American Sign Language), and uses these systems as a means to expand what each is able to communicate and to invent a new grammar and structure for her compositions.

For the Goethe Pop Up Minneapolis, Christine Sun Kim will appropriate the ASL slogan “You true biz,” which loosely means “You exist and I see you,” for a banner and billboard as a means to provide broader visibility for ASL.

ASL has several writing systems but none of them are considered an official equivalent to written English. Installed on downtown Minneapolis’ central axis, Hennepin Avenue, and four other locations all over the city, as well as in the city’s corporate skyway system, Kim’s message will infiltrate the spaces otherwise reserved for advertising.

Thank you to the Hennepin Theatre Trust and Clear Channel Outdoors for making this project possible.

For the event, ASL interpreters Quincy Craft Faber and Paula MacDonald will be present and interpreting the event.