Hyundai Blue PrizeDesign 2022

Exhibition Introduction

A child is searching for a friend’s house. He climbs up winding and hilly paths and goes up and down narrow stairs. Along the alleyways, he asks people he meets for directions and makes his way to the friend’s house. The exhibition “Where Is My Friend’s Home” takes its title based on the film by director Abbas Kiarostami. It carries the ultimate message that it wishes to convey - where is your true home?

We constantly live our lives in a state of perpetual movement. We move by our own will in search of a better environment, but we also find ourselves moving involuntarily due to societal circumstances. In the process of this movement, it raises the question of whether a physical dwelling, a “Home,” truly provides us with the stability of shelter. In the film, the child ultimately fails to find his friend’s house, but he discovers a new sense of direction and value at the end of that journey.

This exhibition is a journey to discover one’s true shelter, which can exist in various forms. The concept of a “Home,” which we perceive as a shelter, only truly carries meaning when it generates memories and emotional connections with us. Then it transforms from a mere “physical building (House)” to an “emotional place (Home).” Feeling a sense of shelter is not something extraordinary. Something ordinary, which initially seemed unrelated to us, can become a true shelter as we start building a relationship and becoming to love it.

Hyundai Motor Company, based on its brand vision of “Progress for Humanity,” is making various efforts to enhance people’s everyday lives. What makes an ordinary daily life more enriching and valuable? It’s not just about making life more convenient and time-saving. Even in moments of solitude, positive emotions can be felt by staying in contact with certain objects, spaces, places, and so on, creating personal memories and experiencing meaningful moments. By forming relationships with various subjects and places, and through the experiences that emerge from these relationships, we accumulate a life with full of value.

This exhibition depicts the various forms of emotional shelters that emerged from “building relationships.” It is hoped that the exhibition can also become a journey for everyone to find their own shelter within their lives.

Part 1. Mobility

The first part raises the question of whether our fixed residence “Home” is indeed our true shelter. We are constantly on the move, experiencing uncertainty in places, spaces, and situations due to the forces of globalization, urbanization, and various external factors, whether by choice or necessity.

The French economist, Jacques Attali, defines the essence of humans as “Homo Nomad.” “Homo” represents humans, while “Nomad” signifies wanderers or roamers. It conveys that humans, reveal their migratory nature by one of their attributes and are fundamentally people who wander.

A physical house can no longer be a permanent space for humans, who are inherently mobile beings. How can we seek emotional sanctuaries in a world of constant human mobility? By examining the various societal, political, and cultural aspects of the mobility situations surrounding us, we aim to break down the conventional categories of shelter.

Listen to the City’s “The Meaning of Home and The Future Scenario of Euljiro” encourages us to contemplate the meaning of homes under social and political contexts associated with homes. Felix Lenz’s “Political Atmosphere” indirectly allows us to experience the causes of global mobility, such as conflicts and wars, by displaying real-time data on airplane movement. Open To Variables’ “Soft Landing” presents stories of movement and immigration in South Korea, using statistical data, interviews, and more.

This part focuses on mobility and raises questions about a current place of residence, serving as a starting point for the quest to find a true shelter.

[Artists]
Listen to the City, Felix Lenz, Open To Variables

Part 2. Expansion

The second part of the exhibition is a process of seeking new shelters in various situations of mobility rather than being bound to fixed places of residence. Nomads are the ones who constantly seek new lives and expand their actions creatively beyond the constraints of space. Based on this, the established term “Nomadism” signifies the constant search for a new self without being bound by specific norms or values. The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze has described the world of nomads as a “World in which vision roams.”

Studio Shelter & GiiÖii’s “Ihyangjeong: Carving with Memories” redefines and reconstructs the memories of the artist’s past home, “Ihyangjeong,” which was located within the context of the housing crisis in South Korea, through a VR experience. archetypes’ “Sugarcane from the South” imagines a new form of shelter created through the symbiotic relationship between plants and humans. Myungsik Jang’s “Becoming a Balloon Fish” humorously portrays the process of moving towards a stable shelter in a world where sea levels are rising.

For those in constant states of movement, where can one find shelter? This part aims to expand the categories we associate with shelter and suggests new possibilities of shelter. Through memory, plants, and internalization, various forms of shelter are explored and suggested by artists’ stories and imaginations. Let’s examine new types of shelter that artists present through their narratives.

[Artists]
Studio Shelter & GiiÖii, archetypes, Myungsik Jang

Part 3. Relationships

The third part of the exhibition showcases emotional shelters proposed by the artists through their experiences. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses what true happiness is. He emphasizes that even if one has all good things, a life devoid of friendship would not be chosen by anyone. Thus, what truly becomes our shelter is the subject with which we form a “Relationship.” It’s not something extraordinary. Anything that accumulates intimacy through shared memories and interactions can shape the shelter. This shelter is not limited to the relationship with people; it can expand to any subject that provides intimacy, peace, or connection as we engage with them.

Yuri Suzuki’s “Hibiki Tree” explores forming relationships with people through conversation and sound. Lucy McRae’s “Compression Carpet 2.0” replicates the act of embracing through machines. Daeuk Kim’s “Nori” conveys intimacy through the act of braiding hair. Bongchae Jeong’s “UPOJBC130810” captures comfort and intimacy through an embodiment in the natural environment of Upo Marsh. Lastly, Eunyoung Park’s “Pillow Study 2” suggests emotional sharing with breathing objects.

Where is your true shelter? Through this part, we encourage you to find intimate relationships with different objects, people, and intangible elements, which can become your shelter at the end.

[Artists]
Yuri Suzuki, Lucy McRae, Daeuk Kim, Bongchae Jeong, Eunyoung Park

Part 4. Archive Lounge

In the final space of the exhibition, we want to share journey that led to the creation of this exhibition with the visitors.

The archive of Hyundai Blue Prize is shown in the first lounge. The award started in Beijing since 2017 and has been presenting topics and meaningful issues to discuss with the public community. Please join us on the journey, introducing the previous winner curators, their exhibitions, the jury panel, and program photos.

The second lounge serves as the final stage of the exhibition “Where Is My Friend’s Home.” Here, visitors can explore the connections between the exhibition, its artworks, and the archive of books and images that exhibition team has referenced while working on the exhibition. As you reflect on the various types of shelters created by the experience and imagination of the artists, we hope you can contemplate to find your true shelter, transcending physical spaces.

[Listen to the City]
Listen to the City is a collective formed in 2009, comprising of artists, urban researchers, designers, and architects. They perceive the city as a single work of art and a shared resource (the commons) and pay attention to the forces that drive the city. They have been contemplating the overlooked values and voiceless entities in urban life. While “Listen to the City” primarily focuses on art production, they do not limit themselves to a certain medium and engage in various activities, such as research, seminars, filmmaking, publishing, and directing actions from multiple perspectives and methods.

[Felix Lenz]
Felix Lenz is a research-based artist, designer, and filmmaker based in Vienna. He conducts analytical research on geopolitics, ecology, and technology and presents strategic interpretations of these subjects through visual works and installations. His video works and installations have been exhibited at various events, including the Beijing Art and Tech Biennale, Ars Electronica Festival, Istanbul Design Biennale, London Design Biennale, and are parts of the permanent collection at the Vienna Museum of Applied Arts (MAK).

[Open To Variables]
OTV (Open To Variables) is a design collective founded by Sung Won Park and Seoyoung Lee. They focus on research to explore history, politics, and social contexts to create objects and temporary spaces based on their findings.

[Studio Shelter & GiiÖii]
Director Sunghwan Lee of Studio Shelter was born in Andong, South Korea, and majored in animation at the Korea National University of Arts. He has been working in the animation field for over 13 years. As a co-founder of the animation studio “Studio Shelter,” his works have been selected to be shown at various festivals, including the Annecy International Animated Film Festival and SXSW. His works include “Ah”(2011), “Cleaner”(2017), “Us”(2021), and “Ihyangjeong: Carving with Memories”(2022).

[archetypes]
Jiwon Lee, a design culture researcher at the design studio “archetypes,” critically examines contemporary normative and human-centered ways of life. Then, she experiments by transforming them into practical designs. Recently, she has been creating research-based graphic design, publications, and exhibitions by reimagining materials and design from the climate change discourse.

[Myungsik Jang]
Myungsik Jang conveys a narrative on “Variability” using a widely used 3D language. Drawing inspiration from the ambiguous and fluid properties of jelly, he creates animations with “Hyperrealistic Jelly” as the protagonist. By implementing textures and virtual movements that can’t be seen in reality, he encourages viewers to look at everyday stories in an unfamiliar way. Started from his previous solo exhibition at Foundry Seoul, telling the stories of “Dance” and “Transformation,” he expanded the work to short animations and narratives into augmented images in this exhibition.

[Yuri Suzuki]
Yuri Suzuki is a sound artist, designer, and electronic musician. Through his work, he explores the relationship between people and sound, questioning how music and sound influence one another while delving into various aspects of sound. Since 2018, Yuri Suzuki has been active as a partner at the design agency Pentagram, where he leads a team composed of designers, composers, and developers. Based in the Pentagram London studio, he endeavors to transcend the boundaries of low-tech and high-tech fields, expanding the horizons of design, technology, and sound.

[Lucy McRae]
Lucy McRae is based in Los Angeles and leads a multidisciplinary art research studio that explores the impact of future technology on human evolution. She combines gallery and art museum-based art activities with a career as a director, producer, and writer. She contemplates how future technology will fundamentally change human intimacy, reproduction, spirituality, biology, and wellness culture by offering new narratives through artistic imagination.

[Daeuk Kim]
Daeuk Kim is an object maker and storyteller. He graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) in 2020. Through experiments with the limitations he has experienced in life due to gender and identity. He projects objects as alternatives and substitutes, allowing him to do things he is prevented from doing in reality. Through visual communication with objects, he discusses the framework of normalcy nurtured by contemporary and rational society and strives to fulfill people’s deepest desires and fantasies that they cannot openly express.

[Bongchae Jeong]
Bongchae Jeong studied electrical engineering at university and later pursued photography in graduate school. He is currently active as a professional photographer. With a deep interest in nature and purification, he is known as a photographer who captures scenes of the Upo Marsh. His works have been featured in various photography magazines and publications, including MBC’s public advertisement on environmental campaign, road reporters, VLUU, National Geographic, Morning Calm, and among others. In 2008, he was invited as the official photographer for the 10th World Ramsar Convention and served as a promotional ambassador for the Ramsar Environmental Foundation. In addition, he was selected as a local ambassador by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and the Korea Tourism Organization in 2022. Some of his published photography books include “Village of Peace” (Samsung, 1993), “Upo Marsh” (Nunbit, 2008), “Between Night and Day” (St. Paolo, 2009), “Letters from Upo” (Mont, 2015), “Upo” (Photo Dot, 2017), “Relentless Attraction” (Da Vinci, 2020), and “Gathering Upo” (FOTASIA, 2023).

[Eunyoung Park]
Eunyoung Park is a multidisciplinary artist and designer who works across various genres including installation art, design, video, and drawing. She enjoys exploring the boundaries between different disciplines and is particularly interested in revealing the inherent connections between art and technology, craftsmanship, and cutting-edge technology. She interprets this as an experience of critical making and an experience of play. These experiences often lead to interactive artworks and experimental workshops, to be shared with the audience.