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[Nettime-bold] Jong Eun Lee: Information about the Gwangjy Beinnale 2002 (Korea) |
From: jeuni@gwangju-biennale.org (Jong Eun Lee) P_A_U_S_E, for a new start 2002 GWANGJU BIENNALE www.gwangsju-biennale.org Date : Mar 29th-Jun 29th, 2002 Hosted by : Gwangju Biennale Foundation / City of Gwangju Venues : Around the Joong Oe Park / The May 18 Liberty park / The Railways Retired from Service in Gwangju The 4th Gwangju Biennale places its significance on expanding art for the public and cultural communication in the new stream of contemporary art. Under this orientation, various symposiums, workshops, and different form of art practices, that lead spectators to participation and seek realistic alternative, will be held in parallel with the exhibition. The exhibition of the 4th Gwangju Biennale consists of 4 Projects in the theme of "P_A_U_S_E" instead of dividing exhibitions into main and special ones. Especially 2 of them and other festive events will interact with the daily life of people outside of the exhibition halls. In Progress - Project 1: Pause Wan-kyung Sung. Charles Esche. Hou Hanru. The 4th Gwangju Biennale has 'Pause' as its main theme and will focus on the need for critical reflections on the current global situation of contemporary art. It will pay particular attention to the dynamic shifts flowing through contemporary art against the mutating context caused by globalization and the fields within which artists position themselves. The Biennale will emphasize the necessity of negotiating different systems of time and space, especially the tension between speed, duration, fullness and emptiness and, hence, between different reactions to the globalizing world from various regional cultures. To bear witness to and articulate alternative thoughts, proposals and space-making in relation to the global capitalist hegemony and its institutional market infrastructure become an indispensable task for us. Therefore, they are at the very center of the upcoming biennale. In addition, and considering the geo-cultural position of the Biennale itself, it is also necessary to focus on inter-continental exchanges and negotiations between the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the planet. Working as an international team in close collaboration, the curators have chosen to witness the reality that the Asian-Pacific region is becoming one of the most dynamic areas in terms of contemporary art and cultural activities. As a counterpoint, and taking into account the geographic limits of our personal experience, a second emphasis will be on the new European scene, particularly its manifestations in the off-sites of the north, east and south. Our proposal is that the Biennale should become an event city created through close, interactive collaborations and diverse interventions among the artists, architects and curators. Instead of a conventional exhibition of "successful" art works, we have opted to develop the event into an adventure with exchange and experiment with the public happening in the specific sites of the biennale. In this way the title 'Pause' will focus attention on the necessity of human contact, reconsideration and thoughtfulness for the perception of art and society. The speed and size of the event will conflict with the equal desire to pause and think - with conversation, real and recorded, as the medium through which this tension is negotiated. The structure of the project for this Biennale will consist of three levels of engagement for artists and the public. Firstly up to 25 alternative spaces or artists' run groups from Asia and Europe will be invited to auto-curate a presentation of their communities. Secondly, a number of artists working with architecture and architects on the verge of art will construct small-scale pavilions within and around the Biennale hall. Thirdly, a number of artists will simply be invited to show their work or make new projects in Gwangju that expand on the ideas of the Biennale as a whole. This structure will bring out the variety of engagements that art makes possible - from individual work to collective or collaborative practice and on to specific kinds of community representation. The Biennale should be the beginning of a long-term project to be developed in the future. It should leave its mark in history and a legacy in the region. New issues and spaces for trans-disciplinary and trans-cultural experiments will be generated that test the limits of contemporary art as usually defined. As an alternative to established concepts and institutional frameworks, this project should provide further opportunities for critical reflection on the culture and art activities of our time. Previous Biennales have attracted audiences of over one million and this proposal will introduce a huge cross-section of the public to the most contemporary work, while providing them with new models for subsequently engaging with art. As such, it is one of the most exciting international opportunities to connect art to current social and political developments. ---- Wan-kyung Sung is the Artistic Director of the Gwangju Biennale 2002. Currently a professor of art theory at Inha University. Mr. Sung has had a distinguished career as an artist, critic and curator on Korean and international projects. Mr. Sung's curatorial projects are: the Gwangju Biennale 1995, 1997; the Fukui International Video Biennale 1993; the Paris Biennale 1981; Global Conceptualism, Point of Origin: 1950s-1980s, (1999), etc. Charles Esche is a curator and writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland and Copenhagen, Denmark. He is the Director of the Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmo, Sweden and a research fellow at Edinburgh College of Art where he works with the Proto Academy. As an independent curator he has produced New British Art 2000: Intelligence at the Tate Gallery, London, Amateur: Variable Research Initiatives at Goterborg, 2000, etc. Hou Hanru is an art critic and an independent curator based in Paris since 1990. Currently, he is a professor at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, Netherlands, a member of the Global Advisory Committee of Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA, and a French correspondent of Flash Art International. He has curated numerous exhibitions including: Shanghai Biennale 2000; Cities on the Move (1997-2000); French Pavilion, Venice Biennale 1999, etc. In progress-Project2: THERE: Sites of Korean Diaspora Yong Soon Min THERE: Sites of Korean Diaspora will showcase contemporary works in a variety of media by artists of Korean ancestry who reside outside of Korea. This project will be a multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary exhibition that integrates contemporary art and media with historical and interactive displays and educational programs. This project is conceived, designed and curated by Yong Soon Min, an artist, professor and independent curator who resides in Los Angeles. The educational component of the project is supervised by Dr. Soo-young Chin, an Anthropologist by training. The feature length film and independent video component to this special thematic exhibition will be curated by filmmaker and film producer Paul Yi. The extensive level of research that has informed this project has been guided by a range of advisors from different parts of the world. THERE will focus on five key cities of significant Korean diasporic population that are also diverse historically and geographically - Los Angeles (U.S.), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Almaty (Kazakhstan), Yanji (China) and Osaka (Japan). These five sites encompass the broad diasporic history, from the earliest diasporic formations in China in the mid 1800's to the more recent settlements of the past several decades in Sao Paulo. The exhibition will offer insights into the unique qualities of each of these distinctive locals while at the same time offering overviews to link these sites to the broader global history and dynamics of the Korean diaspora. Much of Korean recorded history can be better understood in terms of the significant migrations and dispersions of its people. In contemporary times, this dispersion has been accelerated and globalized in scope. It is estimated that nearly 6 million Koreans live in 160 different countries of the world. Today, the Korean diaspora is the fourth largest diaspora in the world in terms of the percentage of Koreans outside of Korea to those in the country of origin, following those in numbers of Chinese, the Jewish peoples and later the Italians. Any study of diaspora has to be located within the economic and cultural shifts identified with global capitalism as well as "space-time compression," the feeling of time being faster and distances closer, which we experience as a result of new technologies that have helped to bring about these shifts, all of which have left many people groping for their bearings in the world. These conditions contribute to a heightened interest in place, an increased correlation of spatial positioning and identity, particularly among those in the diaspora, whose everyday lives are inflected with notions of home, the margin, the local as well as the global in the sense of a distant home. In examining the Korean diaspora experience and history through it cultural production, this exhibition hopes to give insight as well as raise many questions about issues of identity in general. How is one's identity expressed or understood? How does one's sense of identity vary among generations? Are we in a "post-ethnicity" period as has been declared by some in the cultural arena in the U.S or have the events of 9/11 altered the terms of the debate and tensions between Nationalisms and Diasporic frameworks in which ethnicity is once again "front and center?" The continuing repercussions of 9/11 have caused the postponement of research travel to three of the five sites. In November the research team will be traveling to Kazakhstan, China and Japan. In August the team visited and documented Sao Paulo and their home base of Los Angeles. This project will feature about 20 artists of Korean ancestry from various parts of the world who have not been included in a previous Biennale nor have had major exhibits in Korea recently. All of these artists work in contemporary idioms. In my selection of artists, I attempt to avoid any essentializing notions of ethnicity and authenticity at the same time that I'm aware that there is always the risk of imposing an over-arching notion of "Koreanness" on each and every selected work in the exhibition. Sculptural installations by artists such as Lina Kim from Sao Paulo or Wonju Lim from Los Angeles seem apparently devoid of any indications of their Koreanness. Despite appearances, my intent in examining the Korean diaspora is to affirm that issues of diaspora are undeniably central to the immigrant experience and to raise complex questions about the identity of Koreans wherever they are in terms of how "Koreanness" is defined or understood and whether this sense of Koreanness transcends the cultural contexts created by borders and local practices. ----- Yong-soon Min graduated from University of California, Berkeley (MFA, MA, BA) and completed Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in NY. Since 1999, she has been a professor at University of California, Irvine. She curated numerous exhibitions and actively participated in the current art scene including: Girifalco Fortress, Cortona Italy Flight of the Falcon, 2001, and London Biennial at the Centre For Freudian Analysis and Research, Imaging the Wonderboard. In progress -Project4: Site-off-Sight Guyon Chung Planning City moves and changes all the time as it is a living thing. Less than 10,000 people lived in Gwangju in the early 20th century, but over 1.3 million people live in the city now. For the last 30 years, the city has become much bigger and development & construction fever did not pass by the city. About 10km railways that crossed the eastern half circle of Gwangju stopped (pause) from service(off the rails/site off) because it was considered that it caused heavy traffic, since it is crossing over 20 intersections, frequent accidents, noise pollution, and invasions of private residential districts. It seems that the empty land is waiting for a new connection(on the city/sight on) with the city. We should consider that the land has special meaning compared to other public places. It was outskirt when the rail was built, but it is in the middle of Gwangju now. Thus, it has got away with the wave of city expansion, so it is a'spatial seal', a vestige of withheld development. In other words, it is a'seal of time'while the city has grown. Since the rails and crossties were removed, the site looks like it waits for new railways to be built. The space from the past overlaps with the space of the present, so the site is like a keyhole to read Gwangju into a new time and space. Namely, Project ? is expected to operate as a key to open the future of Gwangju. The modern relic in Gwangju The railway retired from service is not just an empty space but a 'modern relic' that is a living potential, a linked surface not a line and a connected sight not just a railway. It reminds a linking or connection not a boundary or severance. It is a new future not a place of rubble, which will be abandoned, and nature has already tried to restore itself as it was. It is a site with lots of questions, which we should ponder over and over again how we will use it with various viewpoints before we use it. It is rare, even anywhere in the world, to have retired railways from service in the middle of a city. Thus, in consideration of these facts, this exhibition has been prepared to have the city meet public art and to probe possibilities that will give the rebirth to the city as a 'cultural city'. ---- Guyon Chung studied crafts at Seoul National University, Architecture D'Amenegement at Ecole National Superior Des Art Decoratifs(ENSAD), architecture at Unite Pedagogique D'Architecture No. 6(U.P.A.6) Paris, Institute D'Urbanism at Universite Paris?. After getting architect diploma(D.P.L.G) in France, opened an architectural firm in Paris. Working as a chief architect of Guyon Architects Association, a member of steering committee at Seoul School of Architecture, and invited professor of architect department at Korea National University of Art at present. Recently, awarded Achun Architect Award by Korea National Architect Association. His magnum works are a catholic church, Kaywon School of Art and Design, Dong-myong High School and outbuilding plan of the French Embassy in Korea. Planning themes The railways retired from service in Gwangju is the subject of Project?. The general principle of the project is to preserve most of its original form by intervening the site temporarily with installing structures. However, it should be stayed as a cultural property and an artistic suggestion of Gwangju at the same time. Recycling Many wastes are still in the site such as crossties, rubbles, and even things that has thrown away. Proper formative artworks can be made from the traces by gathering and using them. Land Art The paused land has been used as vegetable gardens by residents near by. The green plowland, crossties, and rubbles can also be green texture compositions to make a new sight. Open-air Museum Namgwangju Station Building had built in 1930, but it was unfortunately destroyed with its history and memories last year. The site will be a memorial place to experience the past with connecting the traces such as railways and people, Namgwangju Market, platform, and broken bridge. Architectural Landscape Land has its meaning and characteristic where it lies. Simple structures or temporary structures can be installed to make us consider the land new while examine the meaning of itself. Connection Building the rails diminished or interrupted cultural, historic values in a certain way. The values can be recovered by connecting the bridge, alleyways, hills, etc. near the railways or it is a way to reconsider the values by making a symbolic place at the site as a terminal station like Gwangju Station. Nomadic Shelter Nomadic lifestyle grows as urbanization proceeds. As movable houses are created, the city-life moves with the city. That kind of city-life can be considered as a wisdom of life not a negative lifestyle. It is possible that the temporary structures enrich the characteristic of the city. Open-air Classroom There are over 20 schools near by the railways, and the students and residents often come and go that way. It can be used as a urban-ecological classroom, which let students observe and study urban ecology of the city, so they can have right recognition to look at the nature and ecology. Urban Ecology The urban ecology of the city appears at the railways while vegetation and aged traces are there. As time goes by, people can experience the changes of the environment. Promenade & Daily Sports Experience Simple artistic structures and facilities can let people enjoy promenading and sport activities, which provides citizens with special meanings of the daily life. Visionary What will be like the future of the city and urban life? The basic idea of realizing the future of the site is to use artists' imaginations while air and sound are considered as basic resources of artworks with possibly using sculptures or equipments. Examples of the Uses of Public Space Juan Aparicio marine promenade, 1996-1999, by Carme Pinos A promenade, a plaza, and an open-air swimming pool that accentuate the beauty of the Torrevieja Sea Front, in Alicante, Spain. Platform over the Ronda del Mig, by Olga Tarraso,1996-97 A pedestrian walkway, in Barcelona, constructed over an underground parking lot and traffic-filled streets. Anarchy, 1999, by Schie 2.0 A proposal for the city Almere, in the Netherlands, combining art and an urbanism that retraces the layout of existing streets at seven sites in the district. Insel-Hombroich The Insel-Hombroich Foundation has given new life to the outskirts of Düsseldorf, Germany, by cleaning up the environment in and around a former American Army Base. Today, it is an cological park designed by Karl Heinrich Muller, in 1983, where one can go to visit galleries and artists' studios, and to participate in workshops. Duisburg-Nord Park, 1991-2000, by Peter Latz An ecological park renovated from an abandoned industrial site in the iron and coal region of the Ruhr, Germany. Lausanne Gardens A festival throughout the city of Lausanne, Switzerland, of thirty-four gardens chiseled from seemingly unusable sites such as spaces between buildings and lots abutting train tracks. The Curator's Meeting >From Oct. 25 to 29, 2001, the Gwangju Biennale 2002 Curator's Meeting was held in the presence of Wan-kyung Sung(Artistic Director), Charles Esche, Hou Hanru,(Project1 Co-Curators), Yong-soon Min(Project2 Curator), Guyon Chung(Project4 Curator), Chang Yong Ho, Young-joon Kim(Architects for Space Design), Manu Park(Director of Exhibitions) and Exhibition Staffs. This report summarizes the discussions on general issues including: direction and conception of projects, project composition, gallery design, budget operation, publication, publicity, etc. Main Issues of the Curator's Meeting Curators for each project, architects for the exhibition space design and exhibition staff members shared and developed their opinions on each participating artist and art group, on the procedures for each project and on possible problems emerging from the procedures themselves. They also discussed specific issues concerning possible participating artists, their art and their art's meaning, since they will be at the heart of the biennale. After four straight days of meetings, they ended by selecting artists. What follows is information distilled from these meetings about each project. Project 1 'PAUSE' The curators have high hopes that PAUSE, which is the theme of next year's Gwangju Biennale, will be the most ambitious and subversive alternative project ever undertaken in the biennale world. The title PAUSE not only means "to cease an action" but also "to prepare for another action." The curators think that exhibition organizers, including themselves, should in general throw out preconceived ideas, and specifically think about alternative artists and groups, relationships between artistic and non-artistic things, concepts at the source of successful artworks, exhibitions, and artistic context, design of exhibition spaces, spatial-geographical movement of visual constructs, and so on. They hope to reverse the custom of setting up a result and subordinating process to it. Instead, the curators will emphasize artists' creative projects and dialogues, and flexible processes that flow from the senses. Their plan is to encourage a "living" process where they won't know until the last minute what's going to happen in the self-curated spaces or how the spaces will live next to one another. To overcome time and space restrictions, they plan to mobilize a series of technical innovations. What follows is the core project. Composition of the Exhibition PAUSE will take place in four out of the five galleries under the following three structural and spatial categories: Alternative art groups Primarily from Asia and Europe, these groups of artists are developing key alternative strategies to negotiate relationships with institutions, organizations, and society itself. For the biennale, they will create new works for a new city, Gwangju, by arranging spaces, exhibiting new versions of existing works, making video presentations, networking throughout the region, and doing performance art. Visitors to the proposed galleries' alternative spaces will also be participants. Eight of these alternative art groups will arrive in Korea in advance of the biennale opening to participate in workshop lectures, discussions, field investigations, and publications on art for city spaces such as Seoul and Gwangju. The results will be exhibited in one of the galleries as a "living archive." Fifteen pavilions on the theme of PAUSE To realize PAUSE, artists and architects will build fifteen small-scale, open pavilions, in and around the exhibition hall, whose purpose will be to provide a pause in bustling city life. Pavilions will take on the identities of a store, a cafe, a garden, a house, a cube, a building, and so on, in the goal of inviting people to stop, enter, and participate. Some of these pavilions will represent scenes of daily life and some will present vacant spaces, such as Eko Prawoto, who proposes housing for homeless people in Indonesia; or the group Bow Wow, from Japan, which inserts structures into the gaps between big buildings to create alternative housing projects; or AES, from Russia, which works with Islamic forms of architecture and interior decoration. Commissioned Art on Time and Emptiness A selection of existing and commissioned artworks will deal with time, duration, emptiness, rupture, and alternative proposals to mainstream art, formal structures, and established artists' styles. For instance, On Kawara will create a sound work, Michael Lin will make a floor painting, Esra Ersen will work with local school children, Sisley Xhafa will perform a radical political piece. Exhibition Space Design The PAUSE exhibition spaces will be designed by the innovative architects Chang Yong Ho and Young-joon Kim based on the proposals of the three co-curators and participating artists. They will overhaul previous exhibition space models and maximize pavilion conditions such as high ceilings, natural light and open, non-pillared space to create a welcoming atmosphere for biennale visitors. Four main design concepts will underpin the exhibition spaces - pause in the city, pause in the suburbs, pause in the village, and pause in the urban wilderness - and create urban feeling, rhythm and participation. A convenient exhibition office inside one of the pavilions will amplify this ambience and facilitate communication among curators, artists, coordinators and visitors. Practical Matters The majority of artists participating in Project 1 will come from Europe and especially Asia. The curators' goal here is to attract international attention to Asian art and reinforce relatively weak art networking in Asia. Participating artists and young curators from Japan, Malaysia and Singapore will share experience and training programs with one another. Biennale curators, artists, and staff will budget a limited amount of money and manpower and make every effort to secure additional money, manpower, and equipment from the government, business, and individuals. The organizers will make use of international media and art organizations to publicize the Gwangju Biennale. Chapters of the biennale catalog will directly reflect the concrete process of creating art in Gwangju: "PAUSE," "Pavilions," "Networking," "Forums," "Artworks." Its editors hope the catalog will become a vital book of references to artistic experiments and exhibitions. Participating Artists The curators have made an initial selection of artists and groups in the framework of the three structural and spatial categories. Additional selections will be made through December. Groups: Artis Pro Active(Malaysia), Big Sky Mind(Malaysia), Cemeti Art House(Indonesia), Casco(Netherlands), De Geuzen(Netherlands), Digital Arts Lab(Israel), Foksal Foundation(Poland), Glassbox(France), IT Park(Taiwan), Loft(China), Mowelfund(Philippines), Oda Projesi(Turkey), Para-Site(Hong Kong), Plastique Kinetic Worms(Singapore), Project 304(Thailand), Protoacademy(UK), Ruangrupa(Indonesia), Superflex(Denmark), University Bangsar Utama(Malaysia), Uggabat(Thailand), Videotage(Hong Kong), Forum A(Korea), Loop(Korea). Pavilions: AES(Russia), Atelier Bow Wow(Japan), Claude L??ue(France), Eko Prawoto(Indonesia), Lim Tzay Chuen(Singapore), Marko Peljhan(Slovenia), Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset(Denmark), Shinichi Ogawa/Alan Johnston(Japan/UK), Yan Lei/Fujie(Hong Kong), Yang Jiechang(China), Yin Xiuzhen(China), Sora Kim(Korea), Hong-suk Gim(Korea). Artists: Andar Manik/Marintan Sirait(Indonesia), Bluent Sangar(Turkey), Carsten Nicolai(Germany), Geng Jianyi(China), Gu Dexin(China), Lin Michael(Taiwan), Mark Lewis(Canada), On Kawara(Japan), Olaf Nicolai(Germany), Sean Snyder(USA), Wilhelm Sasnal(Poland), Zhang Peili(China), Arahmaiani(Indonesia), Antonio Gallego(France), Esra Ersen(Turkey), Halil Altindere(Turkey), Hilary Lloyd(UK), Jens Haaning(Denmark), Johanna Billing(Sweden), Joseph Grigely(USA), Judy Freya Sybanyan(Philippines), Liew Kung Yu(Malaysia), Lin Yilin(China), Lyn L?enstein(UK), Matthew Ngui(Singapore), Nedko Solakov(Bulgaria), Nina Fischer Maraon el sani(Germany), Otto Berchem(USA), Post8(Taiwan), Sislej Xhafa(Kosovo), Tsuyoshi Ozawa(Japan), Veronique Boudier(France), Jea-whan Joo(Korea), Yeon-doo Jung(Korea), Joo-kyung Yoon(Korea), Heung-soon Im(Korea), Chang Younghae Heavy Industry(Korea), Sang-gil Kim(Korea), Soon-gi Kim(Korea), Seung-ho Yoo(Korea), Bul-dong Park(Korea), Neung-kyung Sung(Korea), Jin Ham(Korea), Jeong-a Koo(Korea), Hak-chul Shin(Korea). Project 2 THERE: Sites of the Korean Diaspora THERE focuses on the art of five key sites in the Korean Diaspora: Los Angeles, California; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Almaty, Kazakhstan; Yanbian, China; and Osaka, Japan. It will be a multidisciplinary exhibition integrating contemporary art and media with interactive historical and educational displays. THERE will analyze from the viewpoint of the "settlement" the identities of the Korean diaspora, and multiculturalism and race in today's world through conflicting structures of concord/discord, absorption/refusal, familiarity/strangeness. The curator Yong-soon Min and the cultural anthropologist Soo-young Chin will supervise the educational part of the project. The film director Paul Yi will curate the feature and independent film selection. The exhibition coordinator Ronald Stroude will design the space. Composition of the Exhibition THERE, which will be located in Gallery 5 of the Biennale Hall, will have two main axes: history and education, and art culture. The history and education approach will be composed of 1) a chronicle of projected images and text of the Korean diaspora from the past to the present; 2) five-minute filmed interviews of artists who will be participating in a survey of the five cities; 3) an entertaining full-length film and visual educational program, involving international scholars and artists, on approaches to the Korean diaspora and the division of the two Koreas. The art section will display artworks by Korean artists who were born or are living in one of the aforementioned five cities. In the lounge around the gallery, visitors will be invited to create art themselves so that they can get a real feel for THERE. Participating Artists The curators have made an initial selection of fourteen artists: nine Americans, two Brazilians, three Chinese, one Japanese, and one Korean. They will choose around six more artists from throughout Asia, in November. Byung Ok Koh(Korea?LA), Lina Kim(Sao Paulo), Eun Kyu Ryu(Seoul?Yanji), Jennifer Moon(LA), Joseph Park(Ottawa?Seattle), Sang Won Sung(Korea?Sao Paulo), Yoshiko Shimada/Hwangbo Kangja/Miline Women Group(Tokyo, Osaka), Jin Lee(Chicago), Wonju Lim(Gwangju?LA), Y. David Chung(Bonn?Washington), Seong Chun(Korea?New York), Susan Choi(Seoul?LA), David Korty(LA), Joo-young Kim(Seoul). Project 3 On May 18, 1980, Gwangju citizens rose up against the military dictatorship and fought for democracy in Korea. What is known today as the "May 18 Gwangju Citizens for Democracy Movement" has become an inspiration for other oppressed Asian peoples, and the Sangmudae Stockade, in Gwangju, where citizens were confined and tortured at the time, has become a symbol of the movement. The stockade itself, however, has been neglected, and today it presents a sorry sight beside the new construction development around it. By organizing artistic experiments that go beyond narrow historical interpretations, project3 will try to revive this symbol and reinterpret its place in politics, society and cultural consciousness. Composition of the Exhibition Project3 participants will invest the Sangmudae Stockade. Documentation on the May 18 movement will be displayed in a gallery. In an effort to bring art to the people, there will be seminars and educational workshops featuring videos. Sites on the former military base - courtroom, stockade, military police barracks, cafeteria, watchtower, headquarters office, store, kitchen - will display art whose theme will be the political oppression of the human spirit and senses. The surrounding grounds will host other artworks and a reception center. Details on space design and participating artists have yet to be finalized. Redesign of spaces is at the planning stage. Selection of artists is imminent. Project 4 Site-off-Sight About ten kilometers of railroad tracks crossing the eastern semicircular region of Gwangju were recently phrased out because of its heavy train traffic crossing over twenty city intersections, its frequent train accidents and its disturbing noise for neighboring residents. Site-off-Sight will be a public art experiment offering a derelict stretch of railroad a new intersection with the desires and concerns of artists, citizens and even bureaucrats. Site-off-Sight's theme is "inherited land," and will be composed of small works dealing with: recycling of sites, facilities and waste; land art using vegetable gardens around the railway; an open-air museum connecting the past to the present; architectural landscape composed of simple temporary structures; connections among neighboring regions formerly connected by the railway; a nomadic shelter, basis of a nomadic lifestyle; an open-air classroom for neighborhood students and residents around the railway; a revival of urban ecosystems; a promenade and a sports program for the public; and a vision of future urban life. Even after the biennale closes its doors, Site-off-Sight will continue to give new life to sites where the railway crosses the city. Composition of the Exhibition Site-off-Sight will cover 10.8 km of railroad, with two special artistic projects, one by artists, including public art by architects, land artists, painters, and landscape artists, the other by architecture students from universities in Gwangju and Seoul, including a data display on original ways of rebuilding old railway sites, an exhibition on the history of the Gwangju-Yosu Railway, a photo exhibition and a painting exhibition. Participating Artists Because this is a public art project of field works, the organizers will select artists to survey the sites and submit first drafts of their projects for consideration. Curators and staff of the Gwangju Biennale will examine them and then choose participants from among the most promising projects. The following are preselected artists. Architects: Young-joon Kim, Jong-kyu Kim, Hye-lim Seo, min i, Jong-ho Yi, Chang Young Ho(China). Land and landscape artists: A. H. Geuze(Netherlands), Alejandro Zaere Polo(UK),Gilles Clemant(France),Jacques Simon(France), Olga Tarraso(Spain) Artists: Sung-soon Kong, Ki-chul Kim, Yong-ik Kim, Heung-rok Doh, Sang-ho Park, Jung-hwan Park, Kyu-chul Ahn, Yong-baek Lee, Joong-keun Lee, Cheng Seon Hooi, Hyun Jung, Jung-hwa Choi, Soon-myung Hong. Whereas the basic theme and structures of the biennale have been determined, details of the decisions made in the above proceedings are subject to change, because the organizers would like to remain open to suggestions from curators, artists, and interested parties, inside and outside the structures of the Gwangju Biennale 2002. As one participant in the meetings so aptly stated: "In the long run, the Gwangju Biennale's rupture from the traditional biennale structure may serve as a precedent. We need to create a more creative bureaucracy, where all of us working on the team initiate creative thinking. The Asia-Pacific region can indeed recreate biennales and other events using new structures. The Gwangju Biennale should be a laboratory for people to think about the future." --- Jong Eun Lee Coordinator of the Gwangju Biennale 2002 Tel: +82-(0)62-515-4652 Fax: +82-(0)62-515-4657 Mobile: +82-(0)16-399-2722 GWANGJU BIENNALE 2002(Mar 29~Jun 29) San 149-2, Yongbong-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju 500-070, Korea http://www.gwangju-biennale.org _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://amsterdam.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold