Solidarity Spores
Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea
15 May – 25 October 2020
Directed by Sungwon Kim
Curated by Bojana Piškur, Vali Mahlouji / Archaeology of the Final Decade, Seonghee Kim, Sulki and Min / Tetsuya Goto, Dongjin Seo, Sungwon Kim
Hosting exhibition:
Southern Constellations: The Poetics of the Non-Aligned, Gwangju station
Curator: Bojana Piškur
Host institution: Asia Culture Center, Gwangju
Venue: ACC CREATION SPACE 3, 4
Produced by Asia Culture Institute
In Collaboration with Moderna galerija Ljubljana, Seoul Museum of Art
Sponsored by Culture Flipper
Art Pavilion Slovenj Gradec | “Cartography of SFR Yugoslavia’s International Collaborations in Culture with Developing Countries” | Gallery of Art of the Non-Aligned Countries “Josip Broz Tito” | Ferenc Gróf | Museum of African Art – the Veda and Dr. Zdravko Pеčаr Collection | Museum of Yugoslavia | Dubravka Sekulić / Energoprojekt | “Third World: Prints from the Non-Aligned Countries at the International Biennial Exhibitions of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana between 1961 and 1991”
The Asia Culture Center (ACC) has been presenting a new vision for the future by examining Asia's histories and cultures through artistic practices within the global context. With growing interest in ASEAN countries and their expanding role in the global arena alongside Korea, China and Japan, new definitions of community and new hopes of solidarity are possible for Asia in the 21st century. In this context, the Asia Culture Center presents a special international exhibition Solidarity Spores, which explores dynamic traces left by artistic practices by touching on the themes of the “Non-Aligned Movement”, “community” and “solidarity”. The exhibition sheds new light on the history of the Non-Aligned Movement and the accompanying cultural and artistic practices; in doing so, it asks how the spirit of solidarity can liberate us from division and conflict resulting from neoliberal globalization. Through visual manifestations of historical time and space that younger generations have not experienced before, artistic practices featured in the exhibition instill hopes and possibilities for a new world order, equality and communal history.
Bojana Piškur's Southern Constellations: The Poetics of the Non-Aligned, Gwangju Station is an adapted version of exhibition that was first shown in the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (Museum of Modern Art), Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2019. The exhibition in Gwangju is conceptualized in a slightly different way. It focuses mainly on the historical cases as a kind of introduction to the cultural politics of the non-aligned movement. Vali Mahlouji / Archaeology of the Final Decade's archival work A Utopian Stage: Festival of Arts, Shiraz-Persepolis recreates the most experimental and unique art festival of the 1960s and 1970s that juxtaposes the traditional and the avant-garde. Naeem Mohaiemen's Two Meetings and a Funeral and Hyun-Suk Seo's The Age of Future probe the idea of the Third World project, searching for answers to divisions and conflicts resulting from neoliberal globalization. “The Interdisciplinary Arts Project” brings together Asia's traditions, politics, and cultures of today with implications for the post-globalization era through these works: the sound installations of Kick the Machine Documentary Collective, led by Apichatpong Weerasethakul; Ho Rui An's performance; and the collaboration between Eka Kurniawan and Hyunjin Bek. Common Interests: Building Solidarity Among East Asian Graphic Designers features thirteen individuals or teams of graphic designers while Solidarity in Everyday Life: Simple Suggestions from the Next Generation of Artists presents twelve of the next generation Korean artists.
