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Terra Galaxia: Aerotropolis, Home and Away @ Liverpool Biennial City States 2012

Several Korean artists will be appearing at the Liverpool Biennial in a group show curated by Stephanie Seungmin Kim:

Terra Galaxia: Aerotropolis, Home and Away

Dates: 15 Sept – 25 Nov 2012
Venue: LJMU Copperas Hill Building | Copperas Hill | Liverpool | L3 | 10AM – 6PM

Seoung Won WON, Wondering Tomorrow, 2012
Seoung Won WON, Wondering Tomorrow, 2012, Part of a Triptych, C-Print (w)125cm x (h)164 cm

Sen Chung
Kyungah Ham
Seoung Won Won

With Incheon Art Platform Resident Artists:
Wil Bolton
Suk Kuhn Oh
Suknam Yun

Terra Galaxia revisits modern day hospitality with paradoxical representations at one of its most contemporary venues: the international airport.

Forming part of fourteen archipelagos of “city states” housed over 600 square meters inside the historic Royal Mail Building in Liverpool, Terra Galaxia has taken its inspiration from the city of Incheon in South Korea. Incheon is the home of South Korea’s main airport and is the country’s historic port city, which was forced to open to modernization in early 19th century.

The title reflects the co-existence of opposite spheres, the futuristic frontier architecturally enclosed space in a state-bound hub, the comings and goings, commercial openness versus paranoid suspicion and security – all of this against an orchestrated backdrop of ‘hospitality’.

In fact, no other modern day institution features more diverse yet complicated aspects of hospitality. Every single element, from tourism to immigration, duty free shops or counter-terrorism, projects ‘hospitality’ through a politically charged prism.

With its daily influx of nomadic guests hosted by armies of illustrious and colourful inhabitants, hosts, guests and parasites are colonizing Terra Galaxia – outer space on human Earth. Six artists were selected to offer a unique view of these forms of globalised, mercantile hospitality – seldom genuine, often commercial and bureaucratic (and tired) – but also to artistically expose the motives behind them.

Through the exhibition, visitors will encounter arenas marked to reflect the artists’ encounter with the definition of institutional hospitality : Departure, Customs, Journey, Baggage, Immigration and Arrival.

(Customs) Kyungah HAM collects articles and images that are forbidden to North Koreans, collages them and sends them to be hand-embroidered by North Korean embroiderers. Using Chinese brokers and other mediators, the works are sometimes confiscated and never returned.

(Journey) Security-obsessed airports have become even more painful to endure after terrorist threats. Seoungwon WON is a photographer with allegorically rich and personal photographs. She responded to this theme with a triptych photograph showing captivating images before, during and after a journey. The past, present and future are represented with a personal reflection on her life’s journey.

(Baggage) Airport hospitality, often half-heartedly feigned and reluctantly accepted, is presented in all sorts of ways from airline ticketing desks and flight boarding staff to immigration officers. Suknam YUN captures and narrates a story with cut-out papers representing many facets of living, juxtaposed with a sense of rejection.

(Immigration) Sen CHUNG sketches the airports’ daily guests and their inhabitants; the hub’s inhabitants become guests, hosts or sometimes parasites.

(Arrival) Suk Kuhn OH is a resident artist of the Incheon Art Platform who collected and archived different representations of Korea with old post cards and more contemporary photos. OH’s works will provide sharp observations about the view of the self and the other.

YUN Suk-nam: Pink Room (2012)
YUN Suk-nam: Pink Room (2012) Mixed media, dimensions variable

Wil Bolton is a Liverpool-based artist working predominantly with sound, sometimes enhanced with video and photography. His work combines electronic tones with digitally processed acoustic sounds including field recordings and musical instruments. He has produced several site-specific commissions and is particularly interested in the resonance of spaces, their history and atmosphere and wider notions of place and memory.

Sen CHUNG evokes a strange sense of wonder with his oil-on-canvas works, that are largely populated by sensitively handled renderings of figures engaged in undetermined interactions with the landscape. He has held solo and group exhibitions in Korea and internationally, including Korea’s Ilmin Museum of Art, Belgium’s Galerie Triangle Bleu and the Museum of Young Art in Austria. The artist currently resides and works in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Kyungah HAM received a BFA from Seoul National University in 1989, studied with the Graduate Program in Painting at the Pratt Institute in New York in 1992 and received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1995. Ham uses a wide range of media including video installation, performance and traditional media. Drawing inspiration from images and articles on terrorism and violence from mass media, she explores the dynamics of war and its influence on society and people.

Suk Kuhn OH was born in Inchon, Korea. After serving as a photographer in the Korean army, he received a degree in photography from the School of Art and Design at Nottingham Trent University in England. Oh’s works provide a sharp observation about the view of the self and the other. His work has been exhibited in the UK, South Korea, Australia and the US, and can be found in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and the Ilmin Museum in Seoul.

Seoung Won WON originally studied sculpture at Chungang University in Korea before studying at the art academies in Düsseldorf and Cologne. There followed exhibitions in South Korea, China, Japan, Russia, the United States, Germany and France in 2011 and 2012. Her work is included in the permanent collections of various art institutions, including the Kunsthaus Lempertz in Cologne and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art in the United States

Suknam YUN is a prominent South Korean artist and a founding member of the feminist art movement. Born in Manchuria (China) in 1939, she currently lives in Seoul, South Korea. Yun received her art training in Korea and America. She studied at the Pratt Institute Graphic Center and Art Student League in New York City. Her major medium is mixed media installation. Many of Yun’s artworks have been exhibited nationally and internationally.

Sponsored by Incheon Cultural Foundaton, City of Incheon, Art Council Korea

Curated by Stephanie Seungmin Kim (Director, ISKAI Contemporary Art)

Organised by ISKAI Contemporary Art UK Ltd, London in collaboration with Incheon Art Platform

Exhibition Design by JAIA Architects

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