Political in focus, Jann Nunn's work focuses on deconstructing narratives of dominance and suppression. In resonance with the strategies of cultural investigation pursued by the French philosopher Michel Foucault, Nunn's work accentuate and expose social hierarchies and powers that establish domination in the guise of a benevolent and neutral facade. With these interests in mind, she has evolved a wide range of sculptural, installation and performance art pieces that variously address environmental, sexual and cultural manifestations of hierarchical domination and its inverse, suppression and even exploitation. Born and raised in a military family, Nunn experienced from an early age the rigidities and regimentations of highly structured and legislated forms of personal and social conduct. These experiences, in turn, inform her inquires into the larger philosophical problems related to structuralist and post-structuralist thought,

both analyzing and redressing traditionally encoded forms of seemingly omnipotent social powers and narratives. Seeking to emphasize non-hierarchical forms of equanimity and social freedom, her works exemplify postmodern issues of difference, granting and giving presence and voice to those who have been traditionally marginalized and repressed.

In 1993, she created a sculptural work entitled Regiment, which used found materials to address these themes. The installation presented a small wooden table divided in the center by a large wooden framed mesh screen, and set with two confronting chairs on either side of the dividing screen. Emphasizing the symbolic duality of male and female relationships, she configured on one side of the screen, a silhouetted image of a man, while placing on the other side of the mesh a silhouetted image of a woman. While exemplifying the existence of preconceived notions of sexual difference, this work simultaneously suggested the inherent confrontational presumptions endemic to traditional gendered premises. Similar issues of difference and its potential equanimity emerge in the work Nunn has created for Ban/Ban entitled Aigo Chukketta (I am on the Verge of Dying)

In Aigo Chukketta, rather than addressing socially constructed gender distinctions, Nunn proposes the complexities of non-hierarchical, international relationships between nations. While sensitive to national identities and differences, this installation symbolically conjoins the individual national flags of the United States and Korea, forming a long, draped banner. While potentially disturbing to both Americans and Koreans because the work transforms and alters symbolic icons of long established cultural and political identity, this piece purposes that non-hierarchical relationships and structures replace preconfigured nationalistic interests because they inherently promise equanimity and peace. In keeping with selected postmodern feminist thinkers such as Sabina Lovibond, this work tackles issues that have perished through the ages, approaching memories of the European Enlightenment ideal of universality while maintaining respect for difference and individuality. The suspended and draped form of this piece thus signifies an altered and quelled sense of ethnic fervor, that modifies and replaces traditional nationalistic themes with mutual respect for cultural and social differences.

Collette Chattopadhyay