In Korea, everything-economics,
society, education, and culture-is concentrated in and
around the capital, Seoul.
The balanced regional development of Korea is such a crucial
task that the future of the country is said to
be dependent upon decentralization and deconcentration.
Assuming this fact, moving from Busan to Seoul, or from
Seoul to Busan means a great deal more than simple conflict
and tension. Indeed, moving from Busan to Seoul,
as in other migrations, typically involves looking for
a more affluent life.
By contrast, moving in the opposite direction-from Seoul
to Busan-is much more difficult to achieve, especially
through a state-driven policy on national land development.
The problem, however, is that this imbalance will continue
to thrive, unless the dominance and subordination between
the capital and local cities is somehow improved.
Interestingly, this same type of concentration and imbalance
between the capital city and outlying region is found
in almost all countries that have experienced the modernization
process under colonialism.
In fact, one might well ask if this imbalance isn¡¯t a
kind of internal colonization. In this respect, the recovery
of an urban imagination through the practice of contemporary
art can serve as an alternative for the solution of this
problem. In the current, asymmetric relationship between
Seoul and local cities, Busan is not unlike Daegu or Gwangju.
From a wider perspective, the issue of centralization
and concentration is related to the dominance of neo-liberal
capitalism, which has been spreading across the world.
In the respect, raising this theme within the Busan Biennale
is not simply a third-world, local gesture of defiance.
It is part, rather, of a broader cultural issue, which
involves
the search for an alternative model of democracy.
One such model for the urban imagination is not a system
of central control, but of dissemination, which aims at
multiple dispersion and multi-polarization.
With this in mind, the Contemporary Art Exhibition in
the Busan Biennale 2006 will illuminate the mutual relationship
between the capital
and local cities, using various visual narratives drawn
from contemporary culture.
¡°A Tale of Two Cities¡± has been borrowed from the novel
of the same title by Charles Dickens, which is set in
London and Paris during the French Revolution in the late
18th century.
