The solo exhibition by Korean visual research band ikkibawiKrrr, features the video work Who Forgot the Village, jointly commissioned by Aranya Art Center, the National Asian Culture Center (Gwangju) and M+ (Hong Kong), alongside a series of new paper and sculpture works.
For this project, ikkibawiKrrr traveled to villages on the outskirts of Seoul as well as ethnic Korean villages in Kyoto, Japan, and Yanbian and Qinhuangdao in China, where they filmed and created artworks. As the artists visited these villages that speak the same language as them, the artists discovered these places are all in the process of disappearing, due to various factors from redevelopment plans to labor migration.
In the creative process, the artists set their sights on the “surfaces” of the villages: scenes, memorials, and traces of life, through which they draw attention to the “interior”—the lives, histories, and collective memories of the villagers. Video footage and rubbings are the methods they used for capturing the “surfaces.”
They are attempting to expand the concept of the village beyond its physical space, another layer around the boundaries, a place to recall emotions and memories, a locale shared by both the villagers who live there, and those who are far from home. The “skin” of the village remains, though it has declined, covered in dust and vegetation due to diminished human activity. Along with the emptying out of the village is the dissipation of the “interior.” In this way, the question raised by the exhibition title takes on multiple implications. It is not just about forgetting and loss, or about specific, physical villages; it is about how in the greater human predicament we can expand boundaries and dwell together in different times and spaces.
The exhibition is organized by Damien Zhang, Director of the Aranya Art Center, and Assistant Curator Jiang Ruoyu.
Co-comissioned in partnership with National Asian Culture Center (Gwangju) and M+ (Hong Kong).
ikkibawiKrrr
ikkibawiKrrr is a visual research band consisting of members Gyeol Ko, Jungwon Kim, and Jieun Cho.
Their name combines the Korean words for “moss”(ikki) and “rock” (bawi) with the onomatopoeic word “krrr”. Their artistic approach reflects aspects of moss as something that expands its world with its surrounding environment along the narrow boundary between land and air. As the members meet with farmers, divers, scholars, and many others, ikkibawiKrrr learns about plants, natural phenomena, human beings, and ecology through their ways of life. The band has also explored phenomena relating to tropical life and seaweeds, which grow independently while also expanding their boundaries to become part of the environment. ikkibawiKrrr major group exhibitions include Forms of the Shadow (Secession, 2024), Breath(e): Toward Climate and Social Justice (Hammer Museum, 2024), Littoral Chronicle (British Council in Korea, Korea Foundation, 2024), Sending Love during Uncertain Time (M+, 2024), Yellow Memory (K History Schoolhouse, 2023), THIS TOO, IS A MAP (The 12(th) Seoul Mediacity Biennale, 2023), so and weak like water (14th Gwang u Biennale, 2023), Lumbung (Kassel Documenta 15, 2022).
