Gayoung Lee

Participatory performance, 2 hours each, 2023

Teach Me What Love Is is a participatory performance series that explores the diversity of the word 'love' as implemented in different languages. The artist invites speakers of English as a Second Language (ESL) from non-English-speaking backgrounds in the United States to teach them songs that best express their concepts of love in their native languages. Participants learn and sing songs taught by the presenter, and they discuss how emotional expressions vary according to different languages, accompanied by food from the presenter's language community. In Philadelphia, performances in Arabic, Argentine Spanish, and Korean took place at the Upper Meyerson Gallery and the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA).