(w. Seoul, b. 1979)
Townhouse ― Closed Clubs in the US Military Camptowns and Korean Women from the Flower in Hell (SHIN Sang-ok’s Film in 1958), 2009-2021, Digital C-print, Dimensions variable (37×47cm / 32.5×47cm)
CHE Onejoon has been recording military facilities neglected after the Korean War and the U.S. military bases in Paju and Uijeongbu since the mid-2000s, showing the unending history of the Cold War through photos, videos, and archive installations. In this exhibition, he presents part of a series of Townhouse, which records the traces of old camptowns around US military bases in northern Gyeonggi Province. Camptown Clubs that had illegally engaged in prostitution for the US military in the past now only have their signboards left, remembering the history. By juxtaposing Townhouse series with the stills of director SHIN Sang-ok's film The Flower in Hell (1958), which starred a woman in a camptown as the main character, he traces of the culture of the US military bases and camptowns deeply permeated into Korean culture after the division. In addition, he presents Strange Visitors on March 20, 2022. Visitors can experience changes in the sense of place while tour the spaces of northern Gyeonggi and Bosan-dong, where the Cold War ideology of the past is still present.
CHE has exhibited internationally at the Taipei Biennial, Palais de Tokyo, the Venice Biennale of Architecture, the SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul, the New Museum Triennial, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the Busan Biennale, the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, the Jakarta Biennale, and others.
FX Harsono
(w. Jakarta, b.1948)
Pilgrimage To History, 2013, Single channel video, 17’ 41”
The Last Survivor, 2018-2019, Single channel video, 29’ 14”
FX Harsono is an active critic of Indonesian politics, society and culture, always updating his artistic language to the current new social and cultural contexts. Harsono’s own biography and family history are often the basis of his art, pointing at the disconcerting situation of minorities. This intersection of the personal and the political is particularly evident in his most recent works. In Pilgrimage to History, he uncovers the plunder of the Chinese when the Dutch returned to Indonesia after Japan's surrender during World War II. Indonesian army, retreating inland, conducted guerrillas in jungles and villages, burning down buildings and important facilities in cities and factories before leaving the cities. Amidst this chaos, many of the militia pillaged, robbed, and raped the Chinese whom they considered to have sided with the Dutch by being their spies. In 1951, Chung Hua Tsung Hui, an organization for the Chinese community, called upon the local people to form a team to be on the duty of searching for the places where other Chinese were murdered and buried without a trace. This team dug out the bodies and gave them a proper burial in a cemetery. The artist documented the lives of Chinese people who had been killed or victimized between 1947 and 1949. He comforted the souls through the work of rubbing the nameplates of the graves (The Mass Grave Project), and recorded the memories of people who directly experienced or witnessed the tragedy (The Last Survivor).
FX Harsono recently held solo exhibitions at Nexus Art Gallery, Adelaide, Jogja National Museum, Jogja and Singapore Art Museum, Singapore and participated in group exhibitions at Moscow Biennale, Moscow, Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, and Centraal Museum, Utrecht among others.
Sylbee KIM
(w. Berlin, b.1981)
Hand-to-Mouth Salon, 2022
In Sylbee KIM’s work, reflections on economical uncertainty and ecological urgencies verbalize through mainly digital 2D, 3D and 4D compositions. Hand-to-Mouth Salon is inspired by 45,000-years-old Sulawesi cave painting, one of the first examples of narrative art in human history. The video script is a monologue of a cave painter, who simulates the hunting scene to psychologically enhance the flawed body and aspire to communal survival. On each layer of two circular glass side tables, digital prints, biological and mythical objects, incense and videos are arranged. Enabling an overlaid perception of time and space, the video installation imagines unceasing attempts of intersectional encounters and gatherings.
Kim held solo exhibitions at Mélange, Cologne; Nevan Contempo, Prague and Insa Art Space, Seoul and participated in group exhibitions at MoCA Busan, Gwanju Biennale, MMCA Seoul, Arko Museum, Mediacity Seoul, Seoul Museum of Art, Kunstverein Göttingen and Neuer Berliner Kunstverein among others.
Elia NURVISTA
(w. Yogyakarta, b. 1983)
Tremors Ground: A Study of the Land, 2021, Mixed media, Dimensions variable (Commissioned by KONNECT ASEAN and shown in Vargas Museum, The Philippines)
Elia NURVISTA is interested in exploring a wide range of art mediums with an interdisciplinary approach and focus on the discourse of food. Through food, she intends to scrutinize about power, social and economic inequality in this world. Tremors Ground: A Study of the Land departed from the cold-war effects, especially from the particular point of view and small historical narrations. In this project she was interested to scrutinise it from the perspective of food politics, in their trajectory with the nation ideology, agriculture movement and land reform in Indonesia. This work also highlighted the shifting of Indonesian politics from Soekarno’ leadership to the nation's trauma to the spectre of communism under Soeharto, which led into the historical matrix of power that shaped today's condition.
NURVISTA has participated in several exhibitions including Dhaka Art Summit, Karachi Biennale, and Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art among others. She also curated Jogja Biennale Equator VI; Indonesia with Oceania, ADAM LAB with Transient Collective, and solidarity platform about Land, Water, Farming, Food: Struggle for Sovereignty, which initiated by Bakudapan and Bodies of Power / Power for Bodies.