About

Korean visual artist Kibaik Yuon(▷ ◁) and English film maker Boris Stout(▲) of different asthetic & cultural perspectives confront another regeneration site-in Westminster. With access to vacant housing block in Church Street they seek to explore 'absence' & overlooked meaning in building & dwelling. 

 Gyonam-dong is a town outside of Sadaemun (the four main gates) in Seoul, where various buildings and living spaces all co-existed, such as; 18th-century Bansong-bang , houses owned by foreigners during the enlightenment period, houses of Japanese people during the Japanese occupation, urban hanoks (traditional Korean houses), and hanoks restored after the war, Buheung houses (revival houses), and Huimang Houses (Hopeful Housing Scheme) houses.

  The area and era of Gyonam-dong, where the inhabitants were as varied in class and characteristics as the buildings, and where the age of the buildings grew in the modern era, faced eventual disappearance. Some people (○) who regret this, as in other redevelopment areas, hover around, pressing camera shutters, recording and collecting.

The artist (><), who was one of those involved in such work, met a foreign documentary director (▲) by chance in Gyonam-dong, Seoul.

At the time, ▲ was walking around taking pictures, wearing a motorcycle helmet to hide their foreign identity, and >< was wandering around collecting pieces of wallpaper from inside the houses and taking pictures of the scribbles on them.

  Then, after bumping into each other a few times, they started talking on the street about an elderly lady who had stayed until the end. They occasionally had meals together in the traditional market, and their encounters loosely continued.

This meeting was an organic encounter without introduction from an art gallery or someone in the field; they came together as two individuals from different environments and cultures, with concerns at seeing large-scale migration and loss, and encountering others from different environments and cultures with awareness of their own perspectives.

The encounter between strangers not knowing each other’s occupation and identify took place in that cluttered and unstable place.

  In the project looking at Church Street & Blackwater House, the location and situation were changed.

Blackwater House is a residential complex built to let to workers in the 1960s in the borough of Westminster in central of London, which had enjoyed the prosperity of the British Empire and industrialisation. This location, which is undergoing relocation of current residents ahead of redevelopment, is a familiar culture for ▲, and an unfamiliar one for the Korean artist >< .

  ▲ is a local, and >< becomes a foreigner.

Perhaps the focus of this project was to examine what kinds of questions to ask each other and how to continue conversations with the people in these two different situations.

At the planning stage, ▲ seemed to have a more active and clear plan, because it is a familiar place.

It was a natural result for ><, who could not then fully imagine what was yet unexperienced.

In this project, >< wanted to witness ▲'s work, walk along ▲'s path for a while, approach the place and space of Blackwater House, and encounter an unfamiliar culture.

  Furthermore, it was to closely observe ▲ who is familiar with the culture, witness the perspectives of migration and construction seen by the culture and community of that place, and observe and record the actions that occur in between.

>< looked around the space and collected wallpaper, and collected and examined familiar things, which might be something more primitive, something close to survival and life.

This would be to observe the marginalised (i.e. hidden) history, beyond what modern society usually believes in, and with minimal outlay(consume?) collected objects from the empty space of Blackwater House, and created a temporary workroom and residence using things found and given, and waited for the conversations and questions that occurred during this piggybacking work process.

  ▲ records the traces of residents left in empty residential spaces (flats) with photographs, videos, and sounds, and encourages young students to record and collect their work.

To talk about their romantic nostalgia for community and ▲’s belief in ‘the boundaries of foolishness,’ ▲ pressed the camera shutter and devised various ideas to archive photographs taken by the local students ▲ recruited.

Another strand for >< in this project is intervention.

An installation of layers of wallpaper which were collected, removed and separated from Gyonam-dong, incongruously set up in an empty shop; photographs of the redevelopment process of Gyonam-dong, and captured images of online chat (□) between the novelist Kim Tae-yong and >< while exchanging images taken at two different locations, Korea and Britain, were displayed in a shop window, presenting unfamiliar things to a different culture.

This was an attempt to start communicating with them through these.

  This work was expected to exchange something with locals, including local students partaking in ▲’s photo education program, residents, local trade people, and people passing through Church Street. However, the collaborating authority’s considerable and irresponsible delay in providing a venue for an agreed period, due to security and safety reasons, prevented creating a situation to meet them. Instead, an exhibition took place for a short period in an empty shop away from the initially agreed space, and resulted in contact with only a small number of passers-by.

This situation highlighted the difference in the both artists’ perspectives and imaginations further, and caused their relationship to deteriorate.  >< returned to Seoul with this uncomfortable feeling and facing Gyonam-dong again.

They are meeting people (○) who witnessed the demolition, relocation, and reconstruction of the Gyonam-dong area during a similar timeframe, and continuing to retrace Gyonam-dong, which has now disappeared. ▲ plans to use their images and imagination to record photos and videos with local students until the beginning of next year.

  Fortunately, this was planned as an ongoing project from the beginning, so it can continue.

Due to continuing difficulties with the local authorities, the initial thought that it would be possible to overcome the lack of some conditions for a short period of time with the help of ▲ fell short of expectations, and >< had no choice but to look at those times as superficial.

This ridiculous and uncomfortable situation helped >< to realise more clearly the will and desires of ▲ who they met on the street, and the story of the marginalised in London where ▲ lived.

  Since there is quite a long time left until the redevelopment of Blackwater House and the Site A area ends, >< wants to look at peripheral events and stories related to modern times with two actual locations for points overlooked in migration and construction.  >< wants to observe others while keeping more distance from ▲ than at the beginning of the project.

(written by Kibaik Yuon)