Jiyeon Lee
Duration: September 6 – November 14, 2015
Venue: 1, Dorim-ro 128ga-gil, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, Korea
Supported by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture
Enter Nowhere: Down the Rabbit Hole, held from September 6 to November 14, is at once an exhibition as well as a process of production and installation. In other words, artist Jiyeon Lee will create and install her work during this period, and visitors may view the process as they come and go.
The artwork in progress may be viewed at any time throughout the exhibition period. For those who wish a deeper involvement in the adventure, we suggest contacting us at info@sevennahalf.com. By doing so, viewers may experience the exhibition in various other ways, from a conversation or a meeting with the artist or the curator to participating in the production of the artwork. From walking down the rabbit hole to writing an email, depending on what the viewers decide to do, they will each experience a “wonderland” of their own.
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Sunyoung Oh (Oh): As a resident of Mullae-dong, tell me how you became involved in the artistic community and its various activities.
Young-sik Choi (Choi): I worked at the Industrial Bank of Korea, which had nothing to do with the art world, for over 30 years before I retired on October 31, 2010. Like most men of my generation, I didn’t have a calling for my job. I was like the rest of the bread earners of my era, pushed on the conveyor belt of life, getting a job, getting married, buying a house, having kids, paying for their education. I can’t say that I didn’t have a say in any of it, but the responsibility of being the bread earner of the family kept me on the belt where I felt like I could not turn back or jump off of although it was not the life that I had wanted to lead. The belt kept moving until one day, I was forced to get off of it at the final stop called “retirement.” Of course, I was worried about what I would do with the “Second Act” of my life, but I actually welcomed my retirement. Even if it meant the end of the economic usefulness of a bread earner like me, a sort of a state of social impotence. It excited me that for the first time in my life, I was completely in charge of my own time. Of course, I was worried about all the spare time that I may have on my hands later on, but I decided to lead a slower and simpler life where I didn’t always have to be the bread earner but could be the bread eater once in a while. With that vague thought, I started attending the Happy Senior Program, the Social Responsibility and Contribution program of the Hope Factory, and the retirement programs offered by my former company. Little by little, I began to plan my new life. To start with, I decided to divide my time up into three portions: 40% would be used for activities that are socially meaningful (on the condition that I would not do something that was not fun for me no matter how meaningful it was); 30% would be dedicated to helping around the house and spending time with my family, and the remaining 30% would be spent maintaining my health and hobbies. The problem was, in order to help around the house, I had to stay near my home, but like most people who have worked all their lives, my network of acquaintances within my community was unfortunately very limited. For most people who work, the neighbourhood they live in is just a place to come back to for sleeping, most of our daily activities taking place outside. In the meantime, I felt like I was too young to start going to the neighbourhood welfare or senior citizen’s centre. Now that I didn’t have a job and the business card that had always spoken on my behalf of who I was, it was not easy to forge new relationships.
Then one day, I started participating in some community art projects such as wine classes organized by artists and the residents of Mullae-dong and the Mullae Vegetable Garden in the City project. That led me to take part in the Art and Community Network as an auditor, the launch of the artist cooperative, the special task force team of the governance-style Mullae Art Factory and various committees as well as art exhibitions. Slowly and naturally, I got to know new people. My new activities also fulfilled the goal I had set for myself about dedicating a certain portion of my time to meaningful things and my hobbies. Although I didn’t seek it out intentionally, as I took interest and got more and more involved, I became a natural part of my community.
As a consumer of culture, Mullae-dong was a very good school for me. Most people who work spend their time off work either drinking or doing some sort of sports like mountain hiking or fishing; their life is very limited in terms of cultural activity. The thought of going to an art gallery says in Insa-dong is intimidating. Hanging out with artists in my neighbourhood, I was able to learn about various artistic genres and had a chance to read related books and works. Through the exchange, I got to know what artists are thinking about. Now, I don’t have any qualms about asking artists about their work, and my knowledge and understanding of art have grown deeper than before.
As I became more involved, I received more and more requests from various organizations to show them around Mullae-dong. So I served as a guide and a pseudo-docent to introduce my neighbourhood. I gave lectures about my experience after retirement to those preparing for retirement. I also participated in discussions, policy forums and panels about my views on the role of urban agriculture. I had joined the then Korean Federation for Anti-pollution Movement, the now Korean Federation for Environmental Movement (KFEM), back in 1992, and thanks to this tie, I am also currently actively involved in such environmental organizations as the Seoul branch of the KFEM (a member of the executive committee, chair of the human resources committee, chair of the ethics committee), KFEM SUN station of Our Town and the Save Noeul Park project.
Oh: When did you start taking interest in art?
Choi: I think everybody is susceptible to art. It’s just that its germination is put on hold for a lot of people due to the weight of making a living, but actually, a lot of people, although they may not practice art themselves, enjoy art in one form or another, as a hobby or as a viewer, on a highly cultivated level or as mass culture. I am no exception. Of course, after I retired and before I got involved in Mullae Art Village, I had already decided to lead a life as a Homo Ludens for the Second Act of my life, and that might have triggered my interest in art a bit more. Perhaps my wish to live as a Homo Ludens was the reaction to the First Act of my life that I had spent designing a lot of grand plans for the bank, but nothing remained in terms of personal creation. Whether it be nature, objects or ideas, I was envious of the way artists expressed their imagination, observations and perceptions of various things in their own words and forms. I wanted to free my senses that had been shoved away and which had become stiff with time.
Oh: What do you think is the meaning of art in Mullae-dong?
Choi: It’s hard to define art in Mullae-dong. Mullae Art Village has formed naturally thanks in major part to the relatively cheap rent in the area. Artists did not come here for a specific purpose or project. There were no residences, either artificial or voluntary, that drew them here nor did they come for a site-specific artistic activity related to steel. Mullae-dong accommodates a diverse group of creative spaces, and I have not noticed a special tendency or movement of artists in the area. One thing though is that since there are young artists practising a wide range of genres here, they have the advantage of collaborating with each other and being inspired by each other’s artistic genres and borrowing from them. In addition, I think that the raw environment of Mullae-dong and the intensity of life here helps to feed and propel the creativity of artists working in this area.
Oh: You are participating in various projects in Mullae-dong. What do you strive to achieve through these activities?
Choi: Personally, I am interested in finding and creating a sense of community within a neighbourhood in a city. It may not be easy, but I would like to contribute to making a “human” neighbourhood through exchanges with the members, artists and steelmakers of the Mullae Vegetable Garden in the City project and poetry and mountain hiking clubs. I am also interested in sustaining the beautiful co-existence between the Mullae steel district and the Artist Village. I am against rapid gentrification whereby big money pushes out the history, culture, time and life of a certain neighbourhood to usher in new buildings and new residents. In that sense, small landlords and artists share a common interest. I think it is necessary to spread this sense of shared interest, and I am trying to find how I can contribute.
Oh: As you well know, there was an incident during Functional Dissonance, the first program of Project 7 1/2, which showed the gap that exists between the steelworkers in the area and the artists. It wasn’t planned, but the incident played a key role in determining the future direction and role of Project 7 1/2 in Mullae-dong. Have you also experienced such a gap in your own projects in the community?
Choi: The gap between steelmakers and artists take on many different forms, and surfaces separately or in combination. That is not to say that there aren’t steelmakers who are favourable to artists. I think that a sentimental, cultural and generational gap caused by the introduction of a totally different group of settlers called artists in an old established steelmaking district is in a way only natural (of course, the migration is also the result of the government’s policy to move the steelmaking factories to Sihwa and the hollowing out of the office spaces in the area following the decline of the steelmaking industry). In particular, in 2011 and 2012, the city of Seoul and the district of Yeongdeungpo-gu were in the midst of conducting a survey with the residents of Mullae-dong regarding the redevelopment of the area, which obviously made the conflicting interests of the different parties involved from landlords to tenants, artists and residents to surface. Meanwhile, the press enthusiastically covered the unusual cohabitation between the steelmakers and the artists in which the artists were given more attention and focus, and the existing residents were a bit resentful. At the same time, there was news about the involvement of artists siding with tenants in their fight for their rights in the tragic Yongsan conflict and the Hongdae Duribang and Myeong-dong Cafe Mire incidents, which fanned the concerns of the landlords in Mullae-dong that artists, although they may not go as far as squat the area, may act as an unfavourable factor in the redevelopment of the district. Most spaces in the neighbourhood were being used as studios, but more and more started to serve as exhibition spaces as well, which led to a rise in street performances, concerts, public installations and murals. This in turn resulted in more and more people coming from outside areas to visit Mullae-dong, often cameras in hand, which deepened the chasm between the local steelmakers and the artists. The former felt like what they did for their livelihood was becoming the object of observation, which not only made them uncomfortable but also interfered with their work. Not only that, cafes and restaurants started to open in the area to cater to the increase in outside visitors, and this in turn led to the rise in rent prices. As a result, the local steelmakers reacted sensitively to the situation. Of course, rent goes up even for the artists, but for the steelmakers, many think that the artists are to blame for the situation to begin with.
Case 1.
During the height of the redevelopment talks in the area, an artist asked me if I could help him borrow the parking lot of the neighbourhood branch of Industrial Bank for his exhibition. When I asked the branch head, he explained that he couldn’t, because a group of landlords having an office in the building where the bank was located had recently asked the bank to sponsor a billboard announcing that Mullae-dong was a steelmaking district. The group consisted of steel-related company heads and landlords who were upset that the Mullae steel district was becoming known more and more for the Art Village. He said that he did not want to do anything to rub them the wrong way as they were all important clients of his bank, and asked for my understanding. So the exhibition was held in another spot. In the meantime, two signboards reading “Mullae Steel District” have been installed in the neighbourhood with the support of the Industrial Bank.
Case 2.
Some artists, residents and office workers in Mullae-dong have been maintaining a community vegetable garden since May 2011. The garden is on the rooftop of a building which looks like one rooftop, but which is actually two rooftops joined by a stairway. The participants obtained the permission of the two different landlords, cleared away the trash, and planted the garden. In 2012, at around the same time as Case 1, one of the landlords suddenly asked that his side of the garden be closed. As such, the greenhouse on his side was dismantled and all the vegetables were moved to the other side, and since then, only half of the garden is being maintained. In fact, what happened was that the landlord was a member of the group of landlords in Case 1, and his hostility toward artists was the reason he asked that the garden be closed down.
Case 3.
In 2013, an artist working in Mullae-dong organized an event called Day of the “Child” (same pronunciation in Korean as “Steel Plot”): Search for the Steel Craftsmen with the support of the Yeongdeungpo-du district office and cultural centre. There were public installations of hammers and masks and cultural performances. However, contrary to the true meaning of the event, no prior exchanges or discussions had been held with the steelmakers themselves. Upset by the situation, some angry steelmakers pulled down the installations and rallied against the closing of the streets for the event.
Case 4.
You can still find signs banning filming, photography and graffiti, etc spray painted in some of the streets in the district, which is proof of the ongoing conflict between the locals and the artists.
* Young-sik Choi is a resident and arts and cultural ambassador of Mullae-dong.
* Sunyoung Oh has been exploring the ways contemporary art functions and relates to today’s society and how art takes root in communities. Since 2014, she has been organizing various exhibitions under Project 7 1/2.
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One lazy afternoon, Alice, bored, notices a rabbit. She follows the rabbit into a small furrow and enters a strange wonderland.
Enter Nowhere: Down the Rabbit Hole borrows its concept from this famous story. The participants experience a sort of a “rabbit hole” in the Project 7 1/2 studio located on the basement floor in Mullae-dong. As they walk along with the installation by artist Jiyeon Lee, they each experience a wonderland of their own.
The same could be said of the encounter between curator Sun-young Oh of Project 7 1/2 and artist Lee. Oh was bored following the cancellation of an exhibition that was meant to be the third project after Functional Dissonance and Pollination when she happened to encounter a rabbit in the guise of Lee. At a time when Oh normally would have been busy with exhibition preparations and in a place which normally should have been the site of an exhibition, the curator and artist meet unexpectedly. Oh falls into the vague space proposed by Lee, and thus starts her adventure in the rabbit hole. Meanwhile, artist Lee’s experience is the opposite. She follows the rabbit in the guise of Oh into the area on the basement floor, discovers a rabbit hole there and slowly and cautiously takes a step inside it to start her own adventure.
Oh hopes that viewers will not take the word “adventure” as something grandiose. Adventure by definition involves a certain degree of risk, and risk can take on a multitude of different forms and weight. In a way, our everyday lives are filled with adventure, you would agree! This exhibition is also filled with its share of elements for adventure: the curator and the artist are working together for the first time; the exhibition is taking place in a space that is not a white cube; the exhibition and the creative process will take place at the same time and no one can predict what the final outcome will be like. As such, the project’s participants from the curator to the artist and the viewers all live their own adventure, but at the same time, they share a common adventure, too: the rabbit hole. What lies at the other end of the rabbit hole?
It is a world that cannot be defined in a word. It is real, but it is a reality where reality’s rules cannot be applied. It is a wonderland that sometimes evokes the past, but whose future cannot be predicted. Just as the rabbit hole led Alice to a wonderland, Lee’s work will lead viewers to an imaginary space that neither exists nor does not exist.
Lee’s work uses various media to expand the real world into an imaginary space and share it with viewers. In that sense, her work overlaps with the starting point of Project 7 1/2. Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland greatly influenced the launch of Project 7 1/2. Just as in Alice’s wonderland where reality’s rules become irrelevant, Project 7 1/2 experiments with projects that awaken the senses of its viewers. Oh has great expectations for the upcoming exhibition, because it is only a half year after Project 7 1/2 was launched in the basement floor of a building in the Mullae-dong steel district that a rabbit hole will finally actually be created. She believes that everybody probably has their own expectations regarding the exhibition. Oh hopes to explore the ambiguity of the boundaries of the space created by Lee’s work that expands the imagination into what may or may not exist. On the other hand, Lee looks forward to the inspiration offered by the rabbit hole on the basement floor of the 7 1/2 space. Meanwhile, viewers who come and go as they wish during the exhibition period may look forward to the work to change in a certain way or remain the same.
It is not possible to know how the gap between each other’s expectations will evolve over the two months, a period of both exhibition and creation. Adventures are like that. What is unknown is risky, and adventure involves risks. An imaginary rabbit hole that in reality leads nowhere, which crosses boundaries that do not exist. But even if the adventure is just in one’s dreams, at that moment, the dull and tiresome reality becomes a wonderland.
“So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality– the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds– the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd-boy–(…)”
Lewis Carroll, Donald J. Gray(edited), [Alice in Wonderland], Norton&Company, 1992 (p.98)
Sungjin Park (Writer)