Museum as Hub

-Heejin Kim, Curator of International Projects, Insa Art Space

IAS has invited and commissioned new works by four artists: Sangdon KIM, KOH Seung Wook, RHO Jae Oon and Siren Eun Young Jung. A total of 12 new pieces of work will be introduced: 4 at the New Museum opening in December 2007; 8 more at the IAS opening in May 2008. The agenda under discussion can be described by the following three focal points:

1. Contradictions manifest selectively according to political and economical conditions, and double-sided nationalism.

• When going along with the flow of globalization in the world arena, diverse national and ethnic identities are recognized, yet minorities within a nation are expected to assimilate (one-way integration) to one unified mainstream norm.
• After much talked about “Alternativeness” that emerged from the politics of identity during the 90s, the questions of periphery, otherness and subaltern even further entrenched? What are the causes and next alternatives?

2. New awareness toward the historic, natural landscapes.

• The landscape, architecture, housing, urban environment, industry, and languages of Dongducheon are the topologies of transplantation, refraction, conflicts, tension, and camouflage that the governmental system inflicts on the everyday life of the Dongducheon people.
• What, then, are the official and unofficial agents that construct and control the localities of Dongducheon?
• Can we trace topologies of coexistence and resistance, as well as survival strategies developed from the bottom of Dongducheon residents?

3. Autonomous politics and language of resistance.

• What are unique narratives from Dongducheon? Is Logos, which is based on reason and rationality, an appropriate language or expressive medium to represent these narratives?
• Is it possible to trace the language of resistance that the subalterns of Dongducheon have initiated, responding in the refracted communication, silence, alienation within their own community?
• If so, what are the forms of conveyance and communication, and what critical impact do they have on undiscriminating globalization and on the nationalist culture which has been tacitly conforming to the global trend?

The four participating artists are responding to these agendas with their approaches and key concepts as follows (listed in alphabetical order):

1. Sangdon KIM

• Reading the segmented territory of Dongducheon from the perspective of respective political interest and distrust, silence, alienation among the segments
• Reading demography through indigenous local languages of Dongducheon
• Operating as a facilitator/catalyst stimulating autonomous participation and raising critical social consciousness through direct interfacing with the Dongducheon residents and engaging them in restoring their own local identity

2. KOH Seung Wook

• The absence of past memories and representational languages for the minorities in Dongducheon and extinction of autonomous local identity
• The outlook for the future when autonomous civil society is the main axis

3. RHO Jae Oon

• The question of representing Dongducheon in the past and contemporary Korea through meta-narrative between U.S. global military realignment (of which Dongducheon is a part) and Western-Hollywood-mega-entertainment industry

4. Siren Eun Young Jung

• Social, political topologies perceived from architecture in Dongducheon
• Gendered international relations based on military camptown women as an allegory
• Narratives that were liquidated under militarism, gender politics, genderized international politics, nationalism and counter-language