sahngupgallery

This interview is a non-face-to-face interview for artists who are currently staying abroad but participated in Sahng-up Gallery’s Group Exhibition in March. In this exhibition, Area Park, staying in Japan, and Interrobang Team living in the United States, Europe, and Jeju respectively participated from far away. Among the situations where they were not able to come to Korea directly due to the pandemic, they participated in the exhibition process through e-mail and zoom meetings without actually meeting each other during the selection and installation process. Thus, we would like to listen more from them through webzine.

1. From Area Park

Q. Please introduce yourself briefly. What are you working on and what kind of things are you interested in?

I’m Area Park, and I am a photographer. I was based in Korea before, but now I live in Tokyo and worked on photographs related to the 3.11 earthquake in Japan for the last 7-8 years. I am currently working on a project related to my mother who is a dementia patient.

Q. Please give us a brief introduction to the works of the current exhibition.

The Moving Nuclear series is a recording of two months of overseas training commissioned by the Coast Guard. I recorded the voyage departing from Jeju in April 2013 to Dokdo, Ulleungdo, the Strait of Sugaru, the North Pacific, Fukushima, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the equator, and heading back to Jeju. It is a metaphorical project that deals with the problem of radioactive contaminated water aboard the actual ship 3012 of the Coast Guard. Based on the horizon in the circle, I wanted to express the meaning of the cycle in which nuclear energy-based logistics are transferred to humans while the nuclear contaminated water is returned to human through the sea underneath. The round circle is the window of the room I used to stay.

Another work, Soda Bottle (2011), is a picture of the remaining objects in the school cafeteria devastated by the tsunami during the 3.11 earthquake.

Q. Which city are you currently staying, and how is the situation over there? (Please tell us about your personal life there, along with how you feel about the pandemic situation.)

I have lived in Tokyo, Japan since 2008. Over the past two months, the Japanese government’s declaration of an emergency situation against COVID-19 has restricted us from going out and will last until next week (Interview date: 2021. 03. 18). Japan has a high moral consciousness among citizens like South Korea, so there is a relatively small number of patients and deaths compared to Western countries. Almost 95 percent of people wear masks when they take a walk on the streets, and try to keep the distance between themselves. I can hardly go outside, so I’m trying various kinds of wines that I’ve wanted to drink at home.

Q. How did it feel to participate in an exhibition in Korea from a distance?

Several exhibitions scheduled for last year have been cancelled and postponed. It is not just my situation, but most artists living in foreign countries must be in a similar situation, but it’s hard to prepare, organize, install, and feedback the exhibition in Korea because it is difficult to enter the country. In addition, the exhibition of the Korean photographer in Japan that I was curating has been cancelled. I do not know how the situation will change in the future, but I think it may be an opportunity for the form of the exhibition to change to some extent.

Q. Do you have anything to say to people visiting the exhibition in Korea?

It’s a funny story, but the coronavirus gave me a chance to rethink where humans came from and where they are going, and realized the importance of my family and friends around me and looked back on the path I’ve taken so far. I hope you all take this crisis as an opportunity too.

Q. Please tell us about your plan in the future.

Everything is very unclear at this moment, but I’m working on my mother who is going to spend the rest of her life as a dementia patient, and I’m planning to present it in Korea in two or three years.

2. From Team Interrobang

Interrobang is a project team consisting of artist Hwasun Yang, independent curator Soyoung Moon, graphic designer Youngsam Kim, and representative of SEAWEED Seungmi Lee. The four are living in different countries and regions and working together on the project. Among the team members, Soyoung Moon and Youngsam Kim participated in this interview.

Q. Please introduce yourself briefly. What are you working on and what kind of things are you interested in?

Soyoung Moon)

Hi, I’m Soyoung Moon and I’m working as an independent curator. I believe that words, writings, paintings, sculptures, and dances are all considered to be of the same origin in that they print out what we see, feel, and think through our bodies. I like to observe the artists’ handwritings left in their work just like the way they speak. After earning a Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts in Chelsea – University of the Arts London, I worked as an exhibition coordinator and assistant curator in an alternative space in Korea, and now I’m staying in New York and continuing my personal research. (To be honest, I’m just taking a rest.) Recently, I participated in the Interrobang project as a curator and editor.

Youngsam Kim)

I work as a freelance graphic designer in Berlin. I work with clients in various fields, and I spend as much time as possible to understand the content of the project and the intention of the director. I’m trying to design something that has its own logic or visual system.

Q. Please give us a brief introduction to the works of the current exhibition.

Moon)

Currently, we are exhibiting the results of the Interrobang Project (www.interro-bang.org).

It is a project launched in 2020 to see how the pandemic affects the creators’ working environment and the topography of the art world, and it was carried out with the support of Jeju-based space SEAWEED(iseaweed.org), Arts Council Korea, and Jeju Foundation for Arts & Culture.

Interrobang is an exclamation point that combines question marks (?, Interro-) and exclamation marks (!, bang), designed by Martin K. Speckter in 1962. It is a punctuation mark that expresses both question and admiration, such as ‘?!’ or ‘!?’, which emphasize the question implicit in the sentence, leading the reader to track the intention and nature of the question. Rather than suggesting microscopic alternatives or solutions, it is a symbol that shows the willingness of the project to examine the situation through questions and find more realistic solutions. Seungmi Lee, Hwasun Yang, Youngsam Kim, and I participated in the project and the website, poster, leaflet, and project identity were produced by designer Youngsam Kim.

To research the working environment of creators in a Pandemic situation, we interviewed a total of 40 creators from October 2020 to March 2021. The question has evolved from the approach to their works to the question of how they are adapting and accepting the current situation. It also included some light questions for a little fun. We limited the contents of the question to 10, and it was to fix the question so that the spectrum of the answer could be seen better.

We thought it would be a good idea to create an interesting image with all the participants, so we collected colors, words, and writings through question 10 (What if you describe this period in color, form or word?). Looking at the answers, we thought it could look like a poem, or a palette to show the current situation visually. Designer Youngsam Kim arranged the collected images with posters for this exhibition at Sahng-up Gallery. In addition, we thought it would be good to convey a more vivid image, so we asked the artists who participated for a 5-second to 1-minute video clip containing their daily lives, studios, works. The collected videos were nicely edited by two talented artists, Eunbi Cho and Jung Heo. We also got advice from curator Jungin Hwang, the editor of the Meeting Room, in the process of organizing the materials for half a year and making them into leaflets.

Interrobang was a project that the artists and readers who participated in the interview were the heroes and it wouldn’t have completed without each of their advice or helps.

Kim)

The Interrobang Project introduces creators of various genres and starts asking questions about the way they approach their work. This is because we wanted to gather stories of experiences that could be helpful to various people who actively apply the changes of the environment to their ways of working to those who keep their distance from the changes and continue to study their own ways.

The interview consists of a total of 10 questions. We wanted the questions to give everyone the opportunities to explore and organize their minds, rather than looking for a clear and obvious answer. The only premise of the question was “Nevertheless, keep working on it”. From realistic answers and information to escapist answers, we wanted this to work as a platform that could make us feel a little joy and update information as if we were listening to a private story. So on the menu page, we sorted the websites recommended by interviewees into categories.

Interrobang is one of many projects that occurred after the COVID Pandemic, and I think it serves to clearly show the problems we are facing rather than solutions. And it is a project that encourages creators not to lose their voices and allows people to view the current situation from various angles.

Q. Which city are you currently staying in, and how is the situation over there?

Moon)

I am currently staying in Manhattan, New York. It’s not a very safe situation, but I think it is good if you think about other areas of the United States. Manhattan seems to be more careful because it is an area that has experienced the worst. As Lockdown has been eased since last Autumn, art galleries and museums have been operated on a pre-booking basis. It became impossible to go on an impromptu basis, but the limited number of visitors make a more pleasant viewing environment. It was even possible to appreciate the paintings in MoMA from a distance, but I was confused about whether I should like it or not. I was also curious about how residency works, but it seems to have been going steadily, given the news of the results reports often. There are restrictions on the radius of activity, but everyone seems to be keeping their place well. There are various events that can be participated in online, so I can have a very meaningful time at home if I take just a little more time.

In fact, I think there is more anger and lethargy against racial hate crimes than pandemics now. I have experienced a number of Orientalism and racism since high school, but I could just shake it off because I thought of myself as an outsider. However, by witnessing the Black Lives Matter movement closer in the US, and seeing Korean residents suffering from violence just because they were Asian, I thought that sitting on the sidelines was the same as participating in the violence and hatred. I have become more cautious about human rights and identity, and I am also learning about structural discrimination and its history.

Kim)

I live in Berlin, Germany. The office is located in the center of the city, and I commute by bicycle. With the Pandemic, the ongoing projects were suspended or planned events were postponed indefinitely. Not only within the art scene but also other works from corporate clients has stopped, and the hectic daily life with phone calls and meetings has become monotonous. Even when I talked to freelance designers, they all couldn’t understand what was going on. Especially In the early days of the Pandemic, I was very anxious because I didn’t hear from anybody and I didn’t know how long this situation would last.

Q. How did it feel to participate in an exhibition in Korea from a distance?

Moon)

Since we could not visit the exhibition space, we had to prepare more detailed materials on work and installation to reduce trial and error. As we tried to indirectly discuss through monitoring screens what we could decide quickly when we meet in person, we had to keep in mind more cases and we all felt more exhausted. However, it was difficulty that we felt in the beginning that we were not familiar with the new ways, and we were able to get used to the unusual situation quickly with the help of the exhibition curators.

In the past, even when we participated in an overseas exhibition, we used to discuss via email and video call but in the end, we flew there for the installation. This time the situation was not favorable and we had to rely a lot on the Sahng-up gallery curational team. We tried to deliver the data as meticulously as possible, but we felt strange and sorry to participate in the display when we couldn’t visit the site directly. Thankfully, however, the Sahng-up Gallery team systematically and quickly updated and feedbacked on the installation process, so we didn’t feel that we were stuck abroad. I realized that the more we couldn’t meet face to face, the more important it was to build a trust relationship and that the communication process needed to be systematic and smooth.

Kim)

I think the fact that we cannot visit the exhibition hall was very sad. I wanted to spend some time talking with the team members, the artists who participated in the project, and the curating team, but it was a shame that the team members were all living in different countries, so we couldn’t celebrate properly after it all ended well.

Q. Do you have anything to say to people visiting the exhibition in Korea?

Moon)

I think Korea is quite active in communication between audiences through social media. When I was in Korea, I thought it was frustrating because I didn’t have many opportunities to talk about exhibitions or works, but when I tried to get news about Korea on the internet from overseas, I could find many people posting high-quality reviews in the open space. I guess everyone prefers writing and talking, and prefers sharing images rather than writing. At one time I was worried that sharing photos through social media would only focus on the superficial aspects of the exhibition, but now it is helping me a lot to understand the trend in the Korean art world from a long distance. It is important to understand how people accept and interpret the images and exhibitions. So, I hope to see more exhibition reviews and photos on social media.

Kim)

I think the emotions and unfamiliar situations coming from the pandemic can be symphasized with not only the creators but also the audience. Like most creators who keep doing something “nevertheless”, I hope you all get good energy from reading the interview.

Q. Please tell us about your plan in the future.

Moon)

I’m expecting a baby in the summer. My goal is to work hard even after giving birth.

Kim)

I’m preparing for the summer workshop at Berlin University of Arts. Under the title "Bad Design", it seems to be a journey to find out what is bad design. Freelance designer’s daily lives are quite monotonous, but the nature of the projects they participate in or work on every time is diverse. So I think there are many opportunities to experience new fields or a new world. I’m trying to find my own achievement and joy and work on it.

Interviewer: Myung Jin Kim

해외에서 온 편지:

3월 기획전 작가들의 이야기

Letters From Overseas: Interviews with Artists participating in March Exhibition

1. From Area Park

2. From Team Interrobang