2025 Mohn LAND Grant recipient Woohee Cho will stage his performance How to Drive Home at Koreatown Plaza this November. The performance traces the housing histories of Cho’s two former roommates, Jisoo and Jin—fellow Korean immigrant artists currently based in Los Angeles. Like Cho, their housing experiences are deeply entangled with their diasporic journeys and the precarity that comes with navigating the process of finding a sense of belonging in Los Angeles.

To produce the score for the musical performance, the artist drove with each of the roommates to their former residences, interviewing them along the way about what life was like during the first years of their immigration to Los Angeles, and relating how housing and visa constraints shaped their day-to-day lives. These conversations were recorded, and Cho worked with two musicians to transform this recorded material into a loosely structured musical score. This score will serve as the basis for a live performance at Koreatown Plaza with Liang and gamin, who will each play instruments including the 생황 (Saenghwang) and 피리 (Piri) and perform choreographed movements. Additionally, Cho will be live translating the recording while using domestic items left by former roommates in his residences to make sounds relating to the narratives.

The live performance will take place in the central area of Koreatown Plaza on November 1, at 5:30PM. Koreatown Plaza (formerly Olympic Plaza) has been a hub in Los Angeles—its shops, restaurants, grocery store, and famed food court have served the Korean and Korean American community since 1988. The central atrium of this vibrant marketplace will host Cho’s performance, which will use its three-story LED screen to project images of Jisoo and Jin’s trajectory as told through their housing arrangements in Los Angeles.

A moderated conversation with the artists and musicians will follow the performance. This portion of the event is presented in collaboration with GYOPO.