Biology and economics have made clear our vulnerabilities as humans relegated to isolation by social distancing and the closure of international borders. Emerging from this context of uncertainty and fragility, this project became a dialogue between peers about learning, unlearning, and relearning – one grounded in values of interdependency as we look to the future. 

경로를 재탐색합니다 UN/LEARNING AUSTRALIA, co-curated by the Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), (South Korea) and Artspace (Sydney, Australia), is an invitation to listen, to be open to multiple voices, and to explore new ways of thinking that inspire mutual understanding and respect. At a time of immense change and heightened focus on community and care, this project amplifies artistic practice that represents contemporary issues vital to Australia and the region.

The exhibition illuminates the practices of 35 leading Australian artists, collectives, and Indigenous art centres. Instead of looking through a rigid thematic lens, it invites a dynamic understanding of Australian art and society with complex cultural, social, and political threads. Participating artists share different knowledge systems, self-presentations and forms of resistance that challenge standard representations of Australia. Ultimately, the project embraces un/learning as a process that rethinks and recalibrates preconceptions of Australia and re-examines privilege, power, and dominance.

The dual Korean and English exhibition title encapsulates an interdependent process of un/learning with its non-literal translation. In Korean, 경로를 재탐색합니다 means to ‘rediscover the route’ and is a phrase often encountered in GPS navigation devices. Together with the English title, UN/LEARNING AUSTRALIA, it denotes different pathways and often-shifting parameters. Un/learning has no fixed destination – what is more important is the practice itself. 

Rather than presenting specific topics or fixed routes, the exhibition welcomes multiple entry points for considering contemporary Australia and its relationship to the region. Diverse ideas and methodologies have been key in shaping the project – sovereignty and self-determination, time and place, listening and knowledge-sharing,, multiplicity and contradiction, and humour and subversion. Collectively, they manifest as potential methodologies for connecting with the exhibition. Yet, they remain open-ended rather than definitive; audiences are invited to navigate their own pathways and encounters.

The exhibition is amplified by public programs including Richard Bell’s Embassy programs, which have been staged around the world since 2013; Agatha Gothe-Snape’s Lion’s Honey, evolving from outreach and workshops with local readers; and interpersonal encounters with Matthew Griffin’s contemporaryary. Each encourages participants to engage in cross-cultural dialogue, revealing parallel trajectories, crossover points and contradictions that resonate in both Australia and South Korea. Through Artspace’s 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS (@52artists52actions) Instagram account, participating artists, collectives and art centres will present new digital commissions on the platform featuring images, videos, texts, audio and more. Unfolding across the duration of the exhibition, this online component will enable audiences to connect with the artists and their works beyond geographic boundaries.  

경로를 재탐색합니다 UN/LEARNING AUSTRALIA commemorates the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Australia and South Korea. The project considers the complexity and multiplicity of Australia through a cross-cultural dialogue that supports connection with the Korean context and audiences in both countries. As part of an ongoing cross-cultural exchange, the works presented remind us of the importance of mutuality between communities across generations, languages, cultures, races, and genders. Fostering self-reflection and critical thinking, the project ultimately welcomes an unfixing of what we had previously considered known, or unknown. It invites audiences to lean into un/learning as a process that acknowledges there is no fixed line in our understanding of who we are and what we want to become.