Conceiving to share a question of ‘how to live together’ the exhibition features the works of eight Korean and international artists/groups: Kim Juwon, Björn Braun, Manon de Boer, Ursula Biemann & Paulo Tavares, Xu Tan, Yu Araki, Rim Dongsik & Woo Pyongynam, and Part-time Suite. Containing the today’s issues of coexistence between the human and the nature, they will unravel the stories of the ones who have disparate ways of living and identities in the world but live together.

In an environment today where images of discord abound and pollution makes it difficult to breathe, this exhibition attempts to invoke sympathy and ecological thinking, contemplating coexistence as a precondition for living. Sympathy signifies both an awareness of the difference between us and others and an attempt to psychologically identify with them, following the thoughts of others in a given situation through a symbolic exchanging of positions. The exhibition concerns how the forms of sympathy can be visualized and what methods can be used to illustrate it through artwork.

The question “How to live together” is a foundation for ecological thinking. While “ecology” chiefly brings to mind the idea of nature, “ecological thinking” is an exploration of coexistence that reaches beyond simply emphasizing the protection of nature or sounding the alarm over environmental destruction. The rapid rise in air pollution and the climate crisis we so acutely sense today stem fundamentally from different systems of “other-izing.” Ecological thinking encompasses an expansive approach to contemplating the different relationships existing in the environment that surrounds us, transcending disciplinary boundaries and ideas of “state” and “race” as it merges with the spaces of anti-colonialism, feminism, and anti-capitalism.

Accordingly, the exhibition presents work that is sympathetic in form, rooted in a symmetrical exchanging of positions within the broader magnetic field of ecological thinking. It proposes a shift in the human-centered framework of our relationship with nature, portraying situations of “coexisting” within human relationships and examining their pleasures as well as their hidden aspects. Suggesting that ecological issues start fundamentally with questions of how we view each other and spend time together within micro-level relationships, the exhibition envisions not islands of solitude, but archipelagos of coexistence.

Opening Reception: 2019. 5. 16, 6pm (Free Admission)
Artists: Kim Juwon, Manon de Boer, Björn Braun, Xu Tan, Ursula Biemann & Paulo Tavares, Yu Araki, Rim Dongsik & Woo Pyongnam, Part-time Suite

*Program (Fin)

[Artist Talk]
Yu Araki
Hours: May 17, 2019, 3pm

Part-time Suite 
Hours: June 15, 2019, 3pm

Kim Juwon
Hours: June 29, 2019, 3pm

Rim Dongsik & Woo Pyongnam
Hours: July 6, 2019, 3pm

[Lecture]
Eco-Aesthetics and Contemporary Art Practices (Fin)
Lecturer: Hyun-Ju Yu(Aesthetician, Director of Eco Aesthetics and Art Institute)
Hours: June 1, 2019, 3pm

A Virtue for Coexistence: Eco-Sensitivity (Fin)
Lecturer: Sanha Kim(Primatologist, Secretary General of the Biodiversity Foundation)
Hours: June 22, 2019, 3pm