Project 7½ (2014 – 2016): Seoul, Korea

Between 2014 and 2016, the exhibitions and events of Project 7½ took place at several sites across Seoul, and each year the theme of the project changed according to the character of the place. The project started in 2014 working with the theme Art and the Unconscious. The next phases of the project took place in Yeongdeungpo in 2015 and Jongno in 2016; both these areas of Seoul are strongly associated with aspects of Korea’s industrialization and still retain this character. In 2015, the theme was Relationships with Others, and Cryptographic Imagination in 2016. Collectively the project involved artists, designers, choreographers, dancers, actors, musicians, critics, and film directors. In many instances, the forms of an exhibition and event were integrated, with artworks becoming elements within an interactive theatrical production.

Art and the Unconscious (2014):
Various locations in Seoul
I invited the choreography critic Kim Nam Soo to deliver a lecture programme offering an interpretation of the work of Korean-American artist Nam June Paik through an exploration of Korean Shamanism along with Freud’s and Lacan’s theories of the unconscious and the various perspectives that arise from these insights. Kim’s series of eight lectures, titled Anthropological Exploration of Art and Unconscious, were held at different venues in Seoul over a period of eight months (Fig. 4).

Alongside the first lecture, I staged a performance titled Impromptu Choreography for Fashion Shows. This also took place at the Itaewon store of the Japanese designer brand, Comme des Garçons (Figs. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6).

Cast
Director: Sunyoung Oh
Choreographers and performers: Myeong Gyu Song and Jae Eun Lee
Costumes: Youngjin Kim
Music: Ombre

Neither the lecturer nor the audience was aware that the lecture program accompanied the performance, as my intention was to unexpectedly shift their perspectives. Initially, those who participated in the lecture inside the shop window and the passers-by outside the shop window were separate groups. After the lecture ended, the two choreographer-performers shifted the attention of attendees at the lecture to the street outside, and pedestrians in the city streetscape also became implicated as-if performers on a stage. In these ways, different groups of spectators found themselves the subject of the attention of another.

Human after Garment

(November 11 – December 30, 2014, Roundabout, Seoul) (Fig. 7)
This project arose from my conversations with a young Korean fashion designer, Taewook Kim. People often came to him because they found the universal sizing of mass-produced clothing did not fit the size or shape of their bodies. In fact, most people’s bodies are asymmetrical in some way and to clearly illustrate this, he proposed to exhibit a garment made especially for the painter Jaeho Kim, who has cerebral palsy. People could try on to directly experience the sensation of a jacket made for a differently shaped person.