The last exhibition of NANJI ART SHOW, <Nanjido Flux>, introduces 5 artists from the 10th Nanji residency. The selected artists create their works within the unique environment and circumstances surrounding the studio, using this as material. The 5 artists take this place, ‘Nanji,’ as their subject, material, and meaning, producing new site-specific projects that are distinguished - in terms of methodology and content - from their works prior to joining the residency. In an art context, a specific site generally refers to the space of an exhibition, but “Nanjido Flux” is studio site specific.
In the south between Haneul Park and Noeul Park (a reclaimed dump-site) SeMA NANJI RESIDENCY is located far away from the usual areas of dwelling. NANJI RESIDENCY is surrounded by artificially built ecological parks. There is not much public transportation around the area. An Italian artist who recently joined the International Artist Exchange Program said that Seoul, unlike his original expectation, was a very quiet city – a double culture shock. Last summer, when an excavator dug into the ground next to the studio in order to install hydrogen fuel cells, the neat piles of trash uncovered proved that NANJI RESIDENCY was indeed built on dump-site. The disposal facility between the studio buildings was closed long ago, however the building remains, showing the scene of a bygone era of industrialization. The huge smokestack of the District Heating Corporation at the north end is a landmark that also marks this site as an old dump-site. These contradictory and inharmonious elements of Nanji, are enough to stimulate the artists’ imaginations.
Hyewon Kwon, who had interest in the history of this region even before NANJI RESIDENCY was established, tracks the archives of the National Archives of Korea, KTV, Korean Federation of Film Archives, newspaper archives, university libraries, and the archives of 3 major broadcasting companies. Furthermore, she employs fiction, television dramas, and films set in Nanji as background to help enhance her works, bringing detail and liveliness.
As Nanji has four seasons and its changing climate is distinctively felt, the sensitive artists feel every minute differently. Fay Shin spreads a huge cloth on the empty ground near the studio building, upon which she lays various forms and objects, recording the index of the weather onto the cloth that has faded through rain and sunlight. It reminds us of a childhood memory of making a cyanotype (printed by sunlight with objects on paper with silver bath).
The countless bugs from the surrounding dense artificial forests have bothered many artists, but have also become a great subject for the art project. Hyungsub Shin transforms insects into taxidermy, giving them an appearance like they are still living, and puts them into the slide carousel in order to project onto the wall of the exhibition hall. It is a real-time feedback since a real, taxidermied mosquito is in the slide projector.
The obsolete Nanji disposal facility becomes a playground for Bae Yoon Hwan. Even the wood pieces that previous resident artists leave outside the studios provide inspiration. For him, the materials that someone discards are more comfortable than clean, white canvas.
Yusam Sung produces artworks using leftovers and scraps from other artists’ production processes. Working materials for Sung is the waste from other artists’ studios. This cyclical process where waste becomes an artwork’s material reflects the history of Nanji, which was once a site for trash and is now a park.(Hyungsub Shin)
