Jihye Park, Love Sync, site photo © Seoul Metropolitan Government, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

The Dongdaemun-gu selected work of the Seoul public art project “Seoul, 25-Part Series” is scheduled to be exhibited for three years from August 1 to July 31, 2024. The title of the work is 《Reflect Project》, which contemplates contemporaneity through images of the world that appear momentarily through reflection of light. The project is designed so that citizens passing along the 150m stretch of Dapsimni-ro can recall traces of past mass visual culture and, beyond that, reflect on the present.

In the public media installation Reflect I, video works reinterpret films produced at the Dapsimni Film Studio in the 1960s through the perspectives of contemporary visual artists. Artists Jaekyung Jung, Jihye Park, Yunseok Choi, Dew Kim, and Space Cell participated. In addition, installation works Reflect II and Reflect III are designed to allow viewers to observe the everyday scenery of Dapsimni. Along with artistic director Jaekyung Jung, more than 50 experts from various fields took part in the project.

Jaekyung Jung’s work A Certain Figure focuses on extras who appear like background figures in commercial films. Jihye Park’s Love Sync questions the fictional nature of the catharsis offered by feature films or weekend drama series. Yunseok Choi’s ‘Life!’ draws its motif from director Man-hee Lee’s film ‘Life,’ the last film produced at the Dapsimni studio, projecting “images of life” onto the former studio site.


Space Cell, Holiday, Holiday, site photo © Seoul Metropolitan Government, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

Dew Kim observes how creative works produce ruptures within socially required structures through director Wooseok Shim’s film ‘The Barber.’ The collage video work Hair, which borrows sculptural images similar to the hairstyles attempted in the film, suggests the continuity and expansion of attempts toward perceptual change through live-action and 3D graphic images. Space Cell, Asia’s only handmade film lab, presents works created with 12 citizen participants through the participatory workshop Holiday, Holiday.

Independent curator Eunhee Kim will publish an anthology book linked to the exhibition, “A Suddenly Recalled Puzzle of That Film: Flashback_Seoul Corner (1960–1969),” in the second half of this year. Visual artists, architects, novelists, and critics participated as contributors. The book consists of various forms of writing that freely discuss the spirit of the times, cultural phenomena, and personal memories reflected in Korean films produced during the golden age of Korean cinema in the 1960s.

The on-site artwork guide program will be held after the easing of COVID-19 social distancing measures.

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