Since 2012, Gasworks has dedicated a strand of its residency programme to hosting a yearly residency for a Korean artist, offering them the opportunity to be linked with the dynamic UK art scene and its influential professionals.
For the Korea/UK season, Gasworks expanded its existing residency programme by working with Arts Council Korea, which had been supporting Gasworks’ Korean artist residency since 2012, and KCCUK, which had reconfigured one of its Open Calls. In addition to a residency project at Gasworks, this new initiative offered Korean residency artists in 2017–2018 a public platform to present their work in the form of a publication, an exhibition or an experimental presentation as part of KCCUK’s London public programme.
In spring 2017, Gasworks hosts Minja Gu for as their residency artist. Minja Gu’s work examines the tension between individuals and the societal norms and institutions they inhabit. She establishes conditions in which interventions in these structures can happen through performance and dialogue, revealing their constructed nature. Her recent work has focused on food as the embodiment of society-specific contexts, histories and meanings. The project Con-tempeh-rary, for example, traces the evolution of the recipe for the Indonesian dish tempeh after it was introduced to the Netherlands during its rule over Indonesia. More recently, this dish then spread though Flemish Belgium through the Dutch supermarket chain, Albert Heijn.
During her residency at Gasworks, Minja will continue her research on the spread, change and adaptation of food and the food industry that has occurred throughout history. She will focus specifically on foods that spread during the period of the British Empire, from the age of exploration and colonialism to the current era of globalisation,.
Minja Gu’s residency is supported by ARKO (Arts Council Korea) and she is hosted in the Outset Residency Studio.
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Minja Gu lives and works in Seoul. Her recent exhibitions include C as in Curry S as in Seen, Marion de Cannier Art Space, Antwerp; Who’s Who, Waley Art, Taipei (both 2016); And No Matter What The Phone Rings, 6th Moscow Biennial (2015); The Part In The Story Where A Part Becomes A Part Of Something Else, Witte de with, Rotterdam (2014); Trading Future, Taipei Contemporary Art Center; A Cabinet in the Washing Machine, Seodaemun-gu Recycling Centre, Seoul (both 2012); and VIDEO: VIDEO, ARKO Museum, Seoul (2010). She has been a resident at Hangar, Barcelona (2008), ISCP, New York (2011) and HISK, Gent (2015-16).
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