Loveland
Dates
September 20(Wed) - October 9(Mon)
Opening hours
13:00-19:00 (Closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and Chuseok)
Venue
Infoshop Cafe Byulkkol
(1F, 27-130 Hawolgok-dong, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul)
Participants
Kim Donghyun, Han Younghyun
Designed by
Noh Dah Yee
Sheet Design by
Bang Minjung
Installation by
mujindongsa
Sound Installation by
Lee Harlim
Sign Language Interpretation by
Myung Hye Jin, Ji Hye Won
Filming & Photography by
Kim Han Na, Ueta Jiro, Yiyagi
English Translation by
Choi Soonyoung
Planning by
Kim Inkyung, Yousun
Advice by
Kim Hyona
Filming Cooperation from
Sign Dandelion
Organized/Hosted by
dianalab
Sponsored by
Arts Council Korea (ARKO)
In cooperation with
Brightworkroom, Infoshop Cafe Byulkkol
*Accessible Assistants will be present at the exhibition venue to assist minority visitors in navigating the exhibition. These assistants serve as facilitators rather than docents. If you require assistance in viewing the artworks, feel free to ask them questions or request aid. Communication can be conducted through spoken language, text messages on your smartphone, or by using provided notebooks and pens available at the venue.
*At the entrance of the exhibition venue, we offer an introductory video of the exhibition in Korean Sign Language and an audio speaker that provides explanations about the exhibition space via audio and reads the content of the leaflets aloud in spoken Korean. Braille leaflets(Korean) and large print leaflets (Korean/English) are also available at the entrance. For more information, please visit our website at fragments00.net/2023.
*The venue is wheelchair and stroller accessible, and there is an all-gender wheelchair -accessible restroom. Visitors are welcome to bring their animals to the exhibition venue.
*The exhibition venue, Infoshop Cafe Byulkkol, is one of the participants of “Project We Welcome All.” For more information on accessibility-related matters, please check out the “Project We Welcome All” website at wewelcomeall.net.
*This exhibition is part of the public art project, “Fragments for the Barrier-Conscious.”
*Visitors have the opportunity to meet the artists at the exhibition venue on the following dates. Please note that schedules are subject to change based on the artists' availability:
Kim Donghyun:
14:00-18:00 on Sept. 23(Sat), Sept. 24(Sun), Sept. 30(Sat), Oct. 1(Sun), Oct. 7(Sat), Oct. 8(Sun)
Han Younghyun:
15:00-18:00 on Sept. 21(Thu), Sept. 23(Sat), Sept. 27(Wed)
13:00-16:00 on Oct. 1(Sun), Oct. 4(Wed), Oct. 5(Thu), Oct. 7(Sat), Oct. 9(Mon)
Preface
The exhibition “Loveland” introduces the works of artists Kim Donghyun and Han Younghyun, who have been creating their works at Brightworkroom* for many years.
As part of Kim Donghyun's work, he unveils the country of Labguk, which appears as a parallel universe to Korea, featuring three amusement parks: Arabland, Eoullimland, and Loveland. Loveland opened in 2003. It was created by Na Hoon-ah, who has been singing a lot of love songs. If Korea has Im Chae-mu’s Duriland, Labguk has Loveland. Kim Donghyun considers Loveland to be a must-visit destination in Labguk, and here's why. "Because I love it, because I have to love it." Illustrated on a map of winding paths, the railway and bus routes, new tunnels, broken roads, and abandoned tunnels lead from real Korean places to the imaginary country of Labguk. These places harbor countless memories, stories, and emotions.
Han Younghyun writes letters addressed to both fictional characters and real-life acquaintances including Cesare and Prince Caesar, and sometimes the teachers around her. The words she presses in, scribbles, erases, corrects with correction tapes, and chooses to rewrite are confessions of love, trust, gladness, happiness, unwavering wait, and joy. "I will follow love." "Have hope. Love is what is called a good person and happiness." A pink heart blooms from the vase drawn on the notebook. It is a heart of hospitality, infinitely open to the recipient of the letter.
Love is something important to both artists. When they vocalize the word “love” aloud, or when they write and draw things on paper that are connected to that word, they are communicating something deep and unique about themselves to the outside world. “Loveland” is an exhibition about a specific direction: it starts from the inner worlds of these two artists and extends towards everything and everyone in the outer world. While it is easy to assume that viewers from outside come and look at the unique worlds of the artists expressed in their work, the moment the words "I love you" embody a resonance, the direction shifts. The expressions that originate from the inner worlds of the artists expand outward into the unknown, instantly connecting with something deep in the viewers’ innermost being. It happens the moment the viewers receive expressions that emanate from love; the moment they become the object of affection. The expressions that extend in all directions like rays of sunlight, and the endless imaginary maps and stories, are directed toward the viewers. Minds that are actively turned outward, instead of gazing into the fixed inner worlds of the artists, are flung into and arrive in the mailbox out of the blue. When we receive it suddenly, we don't feel lonely, we don't feel that we are alone in the world. The possibilities of a certain moment of love, where we can giggle together, explode like vibrant fireworks.
In this exhibition, the two artists, as their artistic practice, demonstrate how expressions that actively reveal an individual's inner world can illuminate the world around them.
*Brightworkroom is an artist group seeking new avenues and different directions to create and communicate, while attempting diverse forms of artistic expression with artists with developmental and mental disabilities who have been working on their unique artistic practices. You can find more information at brightworkroom.modoo.at.
About the Artists
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Han Younghyun +
“Han Younghyun is a gifted lady who is both a younger sister and the second eldest sister. Nice to meet you.
29 May 1992 Landscape Painting Love on the Tree.”Han Younghyun (b. 1992) writes every day with sincerity on pretty stationery or notebooks she bought at stationery stores. She often uses words such as happiness, love, joy, gratitude, and luck to create simple but heartfelt sentences. Her neat handwriting, visible marks that show where she has made corrections, and honest full stops demonstrate that each word is penned from the depths of her heart. She often writes to specific recipients, including her acquaintances and the characters from animations. These brief yet heartfelt letters are filled with the well-wishing sentiments, inquiring about the recipients’ well-being and extending wishes for their happiness. In addition to writing, the artist often uses watercolours and coloured pencils to paint landscapes with blades of grass, flowers, small animal faces, tea cups and plates. Just as she writes each and every word with great sincerity, she meticulously paints her subjects one by one and adds colourful patterns and designs onto them, transposing the imaginary space that exists in her head onto the sheet of paper.
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Kim Donghyun +
“Hello. My name is Kim Donghyun. I was born on September 4, 1993. I draw a lot of tunnels and subway maps. I like to gaze. I gaze at cats or dogs with floppy ears. Thank you very much for visiting our exhibition.”
Donghyun Kim (b. 1993) paints route maps, roads and tunnels in which the real and the imaginary are mixed. His works are characterised by expanding space and creating winding, endless paths by pasting pages from notebooks or connecting pieces of paper together. The works contain a mixture of real places that exist in the artist's memories and imaginary places that he named. Descriptive text, written in tiny handwriting and scattered throughout the works, serves as a guide for the viewers helping them to reach the unknown place. What serves as his inspiration are the landscapes that he saw on the road as a child while travelling across the country in his father's car, as his father delivered candles to temples. Since he began commuting to school independently, he has been studying subway maps, train schedules, and the interiors of trains closely, and has mostly developed his world through meticulously documenting them in small notebooks. Also holding a profound interest in the stations that have closed and the trains that vanished with the advent of the KTX lines, Kim Donghyun captures the scenery of the old Gyeongju station in his drawings. "I do it to reminisce about them. My dad used to travel through this station" he explains clearly. Four of his works, including Jondong Metropolitan City Route Map, are part of the abcd Art Brut collection in France.