Sea Art Festival 2023

            Flickering Shores, Sea Imaginaries, this year’s edition of the Sea Art Festival, is inviting us to rethink our relationship with the sea, referring to the beauty but at the same time, the fragility of our shores, and exploring alternative frameworks and visions for engaging with the ocean and marine environments.

            The sea is deeply embedded in our lives and capitalist society, a vital source for our survival, but also a vast industry we exploit for food, medicines, energy, minerals, trading, travel and so on. But increased human activity, from extensive cruise tourism, shipping and overfishing to nuclear testing, pollution and deep-sea mining have been plaguing the sea, having a huge impact on marine ecosystems and habitats.

            Instead of viewing the sea from the coast as a divided and abstract surface for moving around commodities, Flickering Shores, Sea Imaginaries reminds us that we are part of this body of water. This year's Sea Art Festival aims to explore new relationships with the sea and its ecologies, enabling spaces for cooperation, collective visions and synergies as a call to resistance and restoration.

Flickering Shores
Sea Imaginaries VIEW MORE

Artist

Dukkyoung Wang

                                            Dukkyoung Wang takes note of the subtle and captures the indifferent. Wang tries especially hard to reveal the hidden side of those who are pushed to the periphery of society—those who are invisible and voiceless—by using various materials and media. In recent years, Wang has been trying to “speak to (someone)” and “capture (something)” by confronting the stories of women and considering the form of language that sutures the gaps between the inner and exterior sides of an individual.

Jang Seungwook

                                            Jang Seungwook currently works as an animation director in Reims, France. Winner of prizes at several international festivals, including IndieJúnior – International Children’s and Youth Film Festival in Portugal, In The Palace International Short Film Festival in Bulgaria, ShorTS International Film Festival in Italy, and Digicon6 ASIA Korea Regional Awards in South Korea, he is also expanding his artistic horizons by working as a children’s book author and illustrator.

J.R. Carpenter & Tomo Kihara

Yun Pil Nam

                                            Based in Busan, Yun Pil Nam has participated in eight solo exhibitions and more than 50 group exhibitions at leading art institutions in Korea. By moving from the flat surface to three dimensions, Yun strives to express a world of art that goes beyond the superficial boundaries of painting, which can bind the past, present, and future together. Since 2016, she has been particularly interested in installation art and has also participated in creating theater costumes and public art projects.

Yasuaki Onishi

                                            Yasuaki Onishi has exhibited throughout Japan and internationally. His most recent solo exhibition in Japan was in 2022 at the Creative Center Osaka, but he has also participated in Framing the Boundaries at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Negative Space at the ZKM Karlsruhe, and THE MOON at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. In 2010, Onishi was the recipient of a United States-Japan Foundation Fellowship that included a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, as well as a grant from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation Inc., New York.

Artwork

To See a World in a Grain of Sand: Unveiling South Korea's Hidden Narratives

Atelier NL

Have you ever looked closely at a grain of sand? Imagined it as a small part of the world, with its very own story to tell?

The journey of a grain of sand has been guided by water, wind, and ice over time. Just like people, each grain has its own character and tells a unique story of the land and history. It is also one of the most important materials in our lives. Without it, we would have no glass, no computer chips, and no buildings.

To See a World in a Grain of Sand is a project that maps the Earth through small sand samples contributed by people worldwide, revealing hidden narratives embedded in glass fused from 'wild' sands. From a hot and dry desert to a cold and snowy mountain; a skyscraper in a bustling city to an archaeological ruin; an invisible political border to a vast and open landscape; an excavated gold mine to the bottom of an ancient seabed; or a place of civil unrest to a serene holiday island. When these geographical diversities become visible, it becomes clear that sand carries not only ecological significance but powerful social and political histories.

Specially curated for the Sea Art Festival, Atelier NL delves into South Korea's history. In the intricate tapestry of our planet's story, sand stands as a silent witness to the passage of time, shaped over billions of years. Yet, this seemingly abundant resource faces an urgent global crisis - a scarcity driven by insatiable demand.

Every year, we remove billions of tons of sand from beaches, rivers, oceans, and quarries across the planet, locking it away in infrastructure and technology. This makes sand one of the most quickly disappearing natural resources in the world, so much that there is now a global sand scarcity.

Amidst these global challenges, South Korea stands at a crossroads. As a rapidly growing nation, it must strike a delicate balance between ambitious development plans and safeguarding the environment. Busan's skyline of towering skyscrapers showcases the magnitude of sand's role in construction. It serves as a poignant reminder that sustainable sand management is crucial to support the city's growth while preserving the natural beauty that surrounds it. This installation invites you to see the world anew, where the humble grain of sand carries stories of our past, present, and future.

The collected sands, mainly gathered by Bora Hong, a multidisciplinary designer from Seoul now residing in Chiang Mai, are visualized on the map of South Korea. During her 10-day road trip, she collected sands from diverse beaches along the coastline. Exploring rivers and little streams led her to unexpectedly beautiful and tranquil locations. Bora's involvement with "aworldofsand.com" allowed her to uncover sands with profound stories and memories reflecting the country's rich cultural heritage and natural beauty.

Alongside Bora's captivating journey, Atelier NL categorized each story and place into six themes: history, migration, meaning, ecology, delay, and scarcity, providing a unique perspective on the sands' significance and the memories they evoke.

Mangal series

Renata Padovan

Mangroves forests form a vital ecosystem, connecting land and sea. Found in tropical and sub-tropical areas all over the world, mangroves provide shelter and food for young marine life, works as a barrier against floodings, and it is an important tool to help us mitigate climate change.

Renata Padovan’s interest in mangroves originates from her research concerning ecological and socio-cultural issues deriving from the neglectful exploitation of ecosystems. As a biome, mangroves are extremely important. They occupy coastal zones acting as an interface between marine and terrestrial environments. They constitute the breeding grounds for a diversity of fish, shrimp, crabs, shellfish, the nesting sites for many birds, and the feeding grounds for a myriad of terrestrial and aquatic species.

Furthermore, the forests and the muddy soil constitute an extremely effective carbon sink. Mangroves protect coastal areas from erosion and tsunamis. The muddy soil absorbs polluting
substances that are discharged in watercourses, ending up in the estuaries, such as pesticides and heavy metals from mining activities. Today, mangroves are among the most endangered habitats in the world, due mainly to coastal developments, logging and shrimp aquaculture.

To be inside of a mangrove forest is an overwhelming experience. The sounds, the incredible design of the tangled roots and embracing patterns of the tree trunks, the filtered light that comes from the canopies, it is magical.

During an immersion in a still pristine mangrove forest in northern Brazil, conscious of the devastation of the biome in many other areas in the artist’s country and around the world, Renata Padovan conceived this artwork that would call the public’s attention to this disregarded ecosystem, generating awareness about its importance and the urgent need for its preservation.

Explore more about mangroves in Renata Padovan’s short film, Transition Zone:
https://vimeo.com/843273956

Birds

Merilyn Fairskye

How can we enable better public engagement and open, transparent debate about nuclear power and whether it is worth the risk?

Radioactive pigeons, two pairs of twins and a massacre bring chaos to a sleepy seaside village. In this environment everything is entangled —including birds, humans and plutonium — and nothing is spared.

With an aesthetic approach that emphasizes the act of creation and construction over a passive recording and reconstruction of the world, Birds humanizes the connections between the nuclear and the everyday at a time of great environmental threat and nuclear uncertainty, reminding us that we live in thepost-Cold War nuclear age.

Today’s world is marked by increasing anxieties around nuclear energy and risks, ongoing war, extractivism and violence. And after the Fukushima disaster, the war in Ukraine and political tensions and conflicts, we know that not only is the nuclear age still here, but unless we take action, the risk of a nuclear holocaust might be even greater.

Birds is inspired by real events that took place between 1998-2010 in the area around Sellafield, the large nuclear reprocessing site in Cumbria, UK. Actors present different accounts as they were recorded in the media at the time. The imagery builds around the seaside and nuclear plant and accumulates and dissipates in a volatile environment where all forms of life are entangled. The overarching motif is the environment that the nuclear plant seeps into — land, sea and air — metamorphosing and mutating because of human actions and now, beyond human control. The birds are the constant presence, and unstoppable.

The actors’ voices are woven through a soundscape that gives a voice to the birds and to the environment. The soundscape was created by Meg Travers on a unique instrument she built, a 21st century version of the Trautonium. The original Trautonium, a 1920s German synthesizer, was used to create the non-musical soundtrack for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds. Meg Travers is one of only two people in the world who compose for and play the Trautonium.

How can we enable better public engagement and open, transparent debate about nuclear power and whether it is worth the risk?

With an aesthetic approach that emphasises the act of creation and construction over a passive recording and reconstruction of the world, BIRDS humanises the connections between the nuclear and the everyday at a time of great environmental threat and nuclear uncertainty, reminding us that we live in the post-Cold War nuclear age.

Birds is inspired by real events that took place between 1998-2010 in the area around Sellafield, the large nuclear reprocessing site in Cumbria, UK. Actors present different accounts as they were recorded in the media at the time. The imagery builds around the seaside and nuclear plant and accumulates and dissipates in a volatile environment where all forms of life are entangled. The over-arching motif is the environment that the nuclear plant seeps into — land, sea and air — metamorphosing and mutating because of human actions and now, beyond human control. The birds are the constant presence, and unstoppable.

Between Light and Darkness

Cho Eun-Phil

What does a boat represent?

The night is a time when objects that are clearly visible during the day become shrouded in the shell of darkness, connecting through personal imagination. It offers an experience of the unfamiliar, guiding us through vague boundaries with strange and fantastical feelings. Based on these thoughts, Between Light and Darkness intends to explore things that can be sensibly defined in a conventional manner, yet viewed from a different dimension, it aims to reveal them as ambiguous, peculiar or uncanny.

The blue lace used by the artist to cover these boats forms the outer layer of this work, and blue is a color with a heavy presence in this environment between the sea and the sky. But blue also carries the significance of darkness. Darkness, where light is lost, momentarily sets aside the clear existence of familiar objects we know and focuses on landscapes and objects in the dark, opening up a new sense and way of seeing them.

A boat at sea is a common and familiar sight, and an object with a distinct and unique name. In a place like Ilgwang, a boat is a ubiquitous object that we rarely pay attention to. Ilgwang (sunshine in Korean), where this artwork is located, is said to be the place that receives the sunlight first. By enveloping the boat in blue lace during this brief overlap of light and darkness, the boat in the dark temporarily sets aside its clear existence and meaning, becoming a subject that invites us to imagine alternative meanings. While the lace surrounds the entire form of the boat, it simultaneously reveals parts of it hidden beneath the patterned fabric. Like skin, the lace covers the object, making it opaque but also accentuating the subtleties of it hidden underneath.

Seen yet unseen, an everyday object becomes open to new interpretations and stories. Is this the representation of a journey or a passage? A journey at its beginning or the end?

Aquatic Garden

STUDIO 1750

                                        The Mariana Trench is the deepest point in the ocean, extending nearly 36,000 feet down in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. One might think that the deep sea such as at this point in the Pacific might be a dark, lifeless place, and a place with no signs of human activity. But recent explorations showed that not only the Mariana Trench is a place of diverse life, including different species such as corals, octopus and jellyfish, this deep ocean, remote place couldn’t escape human impact as plastic and chemical pollutants have also reached the deepest parts of the ocean.

Currently up to 199 million tons of plastic are polluting our oceans, and if we continue to produce so much plastic, by 2050, our oceans will have more plastic than fish, continuing to affect marine life, fisheries, coastlines, tourism, and our food chain.

Studio 1750, taking as a starting point their previous work Parallel Gardens (2018), they have created an imaginary garden, an artificially changing environment that alludes to environments being transformed by human intervention, but also to a bizarre coral-reef like structure. This new installation and almost alien environment, Aquatic Garden, invites visitors to a walk-through, while assuming the role of a new and peculiar species that mutates and evolves due to environmental or genetic influences in order to survive such an unnatural environment. Mutation, an “error” in DNA replication or resulting from damaging effects of pollution, radiation or chemicals, becomes a battle coming to terms with loss. In this performative, but also playful and interactive installation, the artists are expressing their concerns and anxieties for a world changing towards the unknown.

Aren’t we humans, who are inhabiting cities of desires made up of artificial structures, objects and artificial gardens, accelerating the spread of new viruses as errors of our collective “intelligence”? In the present, living in a future that was feared in the past - we hope it is now the time to ask questions about what the sea means to us and what future we imagine for this ecosystem.

Visitors are invited to make a sea creature paper hat at the Sea Art Festival Lab to wear and be part of the installation.