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MY SHOPPING BAG: allegories of Seoul 2011

An interesting pop-up event as part of London Design Week:

MY SHOPPING BAG: allegories of Seoul 2011

Global contemporary cultural pop-up project SEOUL-LONDON

curated by JW STELLA

My Shopping Bag images

Date: 24thSeptember-1st October 2011
Time: Tuesday-Saturday 11am-6pm, Thursday 11am-7pm
Venue: LA SCATOLA GALLERY, 1 Snowden Street, London, EC2A 2DQ, UK
Private opening: Friday, 23 September, 6:30pm-8:30pm

JW STELLA Arts Collective is pleased to announce the contemporary cultural pop-up project ‘MY SHOPPING BAG: allegories of Seoul 2011’, in collaboration with La Scatola Gallery, London, as a part of the London Design Festival 2011.

Following a private opening at La Scatola Gallery on Friday 23 September, the exhibition runs until 1st October.

‘MY SHOPPING BAG: allegories of Seoul 2011’ is an exhibition which profiles the current vibrant cultural allegories of Seoul in the summer of 2011, under the context of contemporary art practice. It aims to examine what it means to understand contemporary cultures in the 21st century era of post-globalization.

Created from a concept developed by the curator, JW Stella, the work is a collective of the cultural allegories which are archived and edited by the perspective of one individual, Jung-hyun Bae, who is based in Seoul.

“This exhibition brings together an installation consisting of objects and photographs, which act as representative signs of Seoul, collected by Bae within the territory of her work and her day-to-day life during the hot summer of Seoul from 1st to 31st August this year,” says JW Stella.

The exhibition will give the opportunity to experience the contemporary esthetics of Seoul, with visitors acting as voyeurs of the artist’s shopping bags on her arrival in London from Seoul.

Commenting on the work, JW Stella refers to the cultural anthropologist, Ralph Linton, who defines culture as ‘The total way of life of any society’.

JW Stella says: “In the era of post-globalization in the 21st century, contemporary cultures and the ways of contemporary lives in the universe are constantly evolving. Due to the expansion of ubiquitous Internet networks, the world is connected in one zone and the diverse cultures within the zone are effortlessly influencing each other through these vast social interactions. Through the interactions between the old and the new, the global and the local, we can see that organically formed new born cultural codes are being produced”.

She continues: “Therefore, when it comes to discourse on a contemporary culture in this sense, it must be done in the tense of ‘present continuous’, as they are continuously changing. Through cultural allegories which can be read as cultural codes, we can gain a vivid understanding or interpretation of cultures”.

This exhibition is curated by JW STELLA and organized by JW STELLA Arts Collectives with the invitation by La Scatola gallery. The exhibition is kindly sponsored by Seoul Design Foundation and Light and Motion, London.

JW STELLA (구정원)
JW Stella is an independent curator, cultural mediator, lecturer and the founder of JW STELLA Arts Collective, a non-profit collective team consisting of arts & cultural professionals which is based in London and Seoul. She has curated high profile contemporary art exhibitions in which the concepts focused on socio-cultural anthropology, such as ‘SUMBISORI’ 2009 (Jeju Museum of Modern Art, Korea), and ‘NABATT: a sense of being’, the Saudi Arabian contemporary art exhibition for 2010 Shanghai World Expo (Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, China). As a founding member of SUUM Contemporary Art Project, London, she also project managed ‘Fantasy Studio’(Liverpool Biennale 2008, UK) and ‘Good Morning Mr. Namjune Paik’ 2008 (Korean Cultural Centre London, UK). www.jwstella.com

Jung-hyun Bae (배정현)
Jung-hyun Bae has been working at the forefront of Korean consuming culture and industry, namely ‘fashion’ and ‘shopping’, since the turn of the new millennium – an era of many changes. As the first Shopping columnist in Korea, a fashion journalist, and a publisher, she has been working very actively locally and internationally by examining young Korean contemporary taste and the creation of new trends. As a former editor in chief of global fashion magazine ‘NYLON’ Korea, she also plays a role in mediating the contemporary esthetics of diverse cultures from metropolitan cities such as London, New York, Paris, Shanghai and Tokyo.

Links:

(automatically generated) Read LKL’s review of this event here.

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