Christine Sun Kim to sign US National Anthem

AMERICAN artist, Christine Sun Kim, known for distilling sounds and spoken language in her work, will perform the National Anthem alongside pop star Demi Lovato during football’s biggest night.

Lovato will sing The Star-Spangled Banner ahead of the much-awaited face-off between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Meanwhile, Kim will deliver her own rendition of the National Anthem in American Sign Language (ASL) from nearby on stage, with the artist hoping that her performance will sensibilize millions of homes watching the Super Bowl LIV to sign language.

“Representation matters a great deal to me, and I hope that seeing a Deaf person signing the anthem will bring attention to various issues that plague our community: language-deprived deaf babies, police brutality towards disabled people, a lack of mental health services, and many others,“ the artist recently told artnet News.

While the National Association of the Deaf and the NFL have collaborated on featuring ASL interpreters during the Super Bowl for years, Kim explained that she was at first reluctant about the idea of performing during America’s most-watched sporting event.

“Honestly, I’m not exactly big on watching signed songs or interpreted music. The Deaf community has this amazing group of poets who can really sign with so much rhythm; however, the ones who sign songs written by non-deaf people get so much more attention because that’s the kind of content the hearing world values,“ she elaborated, adding that she considers herself pretty patriotic.

Kim’s performance at the Super Bowl will take place a few months after the artist made headlines when she threatened to remove her work from the 2019 Whitney Biennial if Warren Kanders was not removed from the museum’s board of trustees.

Kim and seven other prominent artists refused to participate in the biennial over Kanders’s ownership of companies that manufacture tear gas and other weapons for the police and military.

The vice chairman stepped down from his position at the Whitney Museum in late July 2019.

In addition to performing alongside Lovato at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium, Kim will debut new work in the upcoming solo exhibition at the MIT List Visual Arts Center.- AFP

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