Maria Yoon’s parents wanted her to get married at 30. She’s been fulfilling that expectation ever since—by getting married to different partners in every state. Her 43rd wedding will take place at Kincaid Park on Wednesday as part of an art project called “Maria the Korean Bride.”

Video clips from her first 42 weddings, along with interviews with family and friends familiar with the project, will show at a reception and screening at the MTS Gallery next Wednesday.

The footage from her travels and ceremonies will ultimately appear in a documentary about her journey through America and matrimony. Parental pressure generated momentum for the project, but her curiosity fueled it along the way. “Those of us who are first- and second-generation Korean Americans feel obligated to please our parents and community,” she says. “Due to this expectation many of the girls have gotten married by arranged set up.”

In her own self-arranged marriages, Yoon exchanges vows with men, women, animals, objects and even aspects of nature. She married a thoroughbred horse and a button-up shirt with a beer logo, for instance. Usually, her chosen one comes to her as a postcard image that somehow represents the state or region.

For her, a dog musher is symbolic of Alaska, just as the colors of a wedding dress symbolize iconic ideas like beauty, innocence and purity.

As it turns out, local dog musher and poet Emil Churchin heard about the project at an artists’ gathering in Anchorage and later agreed to Yoon’s wedding proposal made via email on Thanksgiving.

“I vow to love, honor and cherish her until the performance ends,” he says, citing the last line in his vows.

The successful slam poet wrote three stanzas and is still revising, but the first draft begins, “On the altar of nature's rise/under the dome of sky/encircled with crystalline spires/we declare our love.”

For him, the performance/wedding will generate some much-needed publicity for his Iditarod run in 2010. He still needs money to make it happen and finds it challenging to raise funds when working on the slope the first half the month and then training dogs the second.

As an artist, he also appreciates the simplicity and complexity of Yoon’s project.

“In the footage and images I've seen, her head is bowed and she is quiet,” he said. “I took this to be a comment upon her attitude toward marriage as subjugation. But in an interview, I heard her describe it as the woman honoring the event. So she is poking fun at what she considers to be a dated institution, yet honoring it at the same time.”

In a radio interview about ten weddings ago, Yoon said the project addressed “my being a Korean American woman living in America and trying to fulfill that expectation of being married when I’m not ready for it.”

In some ways, her rookie Iditarod groom feels the same—an Alaska man trying to fulfill the expectation of being an Iditarod finisher when he’s not quite ready for it, at least not financially, and who secretly wants to find a partner and start a family. (“What if I’m smitten with her?” he wondered.)

All of which partly explains the call for AA lithium batteries and hand warmers for the groom (and maybe a bit of cash). As for the bride, well she merely wants guests to bring dogs and bells to ring.

After all, Yoon has learned much about marriage and America since her first wedding in Nevada in 2001. “Everyone has different definitions (of marriage),” she said, “and I think this concept is still evolving for some of us. Some might argue it’s an out-dated subject, but what about same-sex and inter-racial marriage?”

Or the hour-long union of a Korean Bride with a rookie dog musher.

What began as Yoon’s exploration of how the expectations exerted on us influence our lives has turned into an investigation of what it means to live a singular life within the immensity of tradition.

A reception and screening of Maria the Korean Bride will show from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, December 23, at the MTS Gallery (3142 Mountain View Drive). Her marriage performance to dog musher Emil Churchin will take place at 3 p.m. near the Kincaid Outdoor Center at the west end of Raspberry Road.