Museum as Hub

Free*

Insa Art Space curator Heejin Kim moderates a conversation with Sangdon Kim, Koh Seung Wook, Rho Jae Oon, and siren eun youg jung, the four artists commissioned for the Museum as Hub presentation Dongducheon: A Walk to Remember, A Walk to Envision. Insa Art Space commissioned these artists to create new works on the subject of the regional city of Dongducheon in South Korea, home to a US military base. In this two-year project, Dongducheon is accessed from three frames of reference: an urban topology of the city; the language, speech, narratives, and memory of the “invisible” socio-historical subjects; and the role/function of art and artists in the construction of social subjectivities.

A public discussion of the Museum as Hub project will follow, moderated by Lee Dae-hoon Francis, guest commentator for the project.

siren eun young jung’s photographs, videos, and installations recall people who exist among us, yet are invisible. The invisible are unregistered, undocumented, and unidentified individuals marginalized from the common vernacular language, and instead have their own nonverbal counter-languages. jung’s consistent endeavor is to identify and enrich the vocabularies of these counter-languages in art by questioning the ethics of representation and the politics of such collective sentiments as loss, agony, remorse, and sadness.

Heejin Kim is a curator based in Seoul, Korea. Kim joined Insa Art Space in 2005, where she has initiated a research-based dialogical art practice that actively engages artists, local communities, and the public. Her programs integrate exhibitions, workshops, talks, and collaborative production and include “Between Us,” a project by 16 Beaver, “Traveling Magazine Table,” a project by Bik Van der Pol, “Frame Builders: Choice of Local Art Institution at the time of New Institutional Critique,” “Collective Expectations, Collective Potentials,” and the IAS annual agenda project series, “Thought is Made in the Mouth: Alternative Economy.”

Sangdon Kim’s work addresses sociopolitical and ecological issues through research-based, collaborative community projects in contested sites such as Seoul, Pyeong-taek, Yeojoo, Busan, and most recently, Dongducheon. His projects address the effect of government policies and economic globalization on minoritized citizens and the creative potential of a society. Kim utilizes various methodologies such as participatory workshops, local gatherings, street parties, and collaborative productions designed according to the needs and issues of each context in order to engage diverse groups of audiences and artists in dialogue.

Koh Seung Wook uses photographs, installation, and video in his conceptual projects that critique art systems and conventional art practices. In his solo exhibition, “Please Honor Me with Your Attendance,” Koh presented a text work appropriating the gallery’s rental contract. In performance-based photo and video works such as Playing in a Vacant Lot and Triathlon, he reflects upon progress-driven urbanization and industrialization. Koh currently works as a director of alternative space pool, where he is organizing a seminar series on autonomous civilian movements in East Asia.

Lee Dae-hoon Francis is a founding member and current Deputy Secretary of the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) in Seoul. He has fifteen years of experience working as an activist in social movement organizations and NGOs. Lee is currently analyzing the relationship between security and democratization in Northeast Asia for his doctoral degree at the University of Bradford. He teaches Peace Studies and conducts research at the Center for Human Rights and Peace at SongKongHoi University, Seoul. An active member of the Asian Peace Alliance, Lee is involved in ARENA (Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives, arenaonline.org) programs on Peace and Security and the Regional School.

Rho Jae Oon produces meta-narrative with drifting images and sound archived from the Web. His work starts with meticulous research and the archiving of image clips and sound files, which he appropriates and recomposes into his own story. His narratives never directly describe a specific context, but allude to a context’s sociopolitical issues. His final Web publications take the form of loose random sequences divided in chapters, often recalling sci-fi novels, and can be compared to contemporary literature, music, and painting.

A reception will directly follow the discussion outside the theater.

*This event is free but tickets are required.