Jooyoung Oh, Kestrel Drone, 2025, Controller, motor, resin, stainless, carbon, film, 120x300x75cm(2). Courtesy of the artist © Gyeongnam Art Museum
Gyeongnam Art Museum presents the
exhibition 《Within and Without》
through June 28.
Today, as our bodies, memories, and modes
of survival have undergone rapid transformation, the forms of community that
once defined us can no longer fully account for our lives. We now find
ourselves in a position to reconsider both the “individual” and the “community”
from a place beyond those former structures.
This exhibition begins precisely from that
gap. Above all, it opens a space for dialogue by acknowledging the necessity of
community. However, whereas past notions of community often subsumed
individuals under large-scale constructs such as the nation, ethnicity, family,
or ideology, the form of community proposed here is closer to smaller, more
specific units—emerging from individual needs, intentions, and the conditions
of minority lives.
Lee Eunhee, Colorless, Odorless, 2024, Single-channel video, color, sound, 55min, Courtesy of the artist © Gyeongnam Art Museum
Within this framework, individual voices
are not sacrificed for the whole or reduced to a single representative
narrative; rather, they are negotiated toward coexistence while retaining their
differences. The works that constitute the exhibition present scenes through
which such new forms of community can be sensed—bringing together voices
grounded in personal experience, emotion, and positionality within a shared
space.
These distinct narratives form a different
mode of “being together,” one that departs from traditional notions of
community, as each individual perceives and articulates the world from their
own standpoint. Throughout the exhibition, a recurring question emerges: who
speaks, and from where do they stand?
Voices that have been erased from history
or relegated to the margins under the name of minorities, as well as presences
that have not even registered on the surface of statistics and data, are
brought into view through contemporary media such as photography, video,
installation, and sculpture.
Oh Hwajin, Nadarata 2023, 2023, Scrapped car parts, iron, lighting, etc, Dimensions variable, Courtesy of the artist © Gyeongnam Art Museum
Since the 1990s, works centered on the
keywords of “relation” and “participation” have often proposed specific models
of interaction. This exhibition, however, shifts its focus away from the form
of relations themselves, placing greater emphasis on the conditions that allow
different narratives to coexist while retaining their individuality.
Rather than delivering fixed or complete
messages, the works in the exhibition juxtapose multiple present-tense
communities shaped by distinct perceptions of reality, emotions, and
imagination.
Throughout the exhibition, practices emerge
that involve sharing one’s own experiences with others, listening attentively
to the stories of others, and sensing within environments co-constituted by
human and non-human agents. This exhibition ultimately seeks to contemplate the
evolving face of community as it takes shape under the conditions of today.
Participating Artists: Oh
Hwajin, Omyo Cho, Lee Eunhee, Seo Sunghyeop, Lee Jinju, Park Youngsook, Yuri
An, Mioon, Chu Mirim, Hyo Duck Hwang, Jooyoung Oh, Eija Liisa Ahtila, HAEPAARY,
Minjin Lee
