Busan Biennale
The Busan Biennale is a biannual international contemporary art show that integrated three different art events held in the city in 1998: the Busan Youth Biennale, the first biennale of Korea that was voluntarily organized by local artists in 1981; the Sea Art Festival, an environmental art festival launched in 1987 with the sea serving as a backdrop; and the Busan International Outdoor Sculpture Symposium that was first held in 1991. The biennale was previously called the Pusan International Contemporary Art Festival (PICAF) before it launched.
The biennale has its own unique attribute in that it was formed not out of any political logic or need but rather the pure force of local Busan artists’ will and their voluntary participation. Even to this day their interest in Busan's culture and its experimental nature has been the key foundation for shaping the biennale’s identity.
This biennale is the only one like it in the world that was established through an integration of three types of art events such as a Contemporary Art Exhibition, Sculpture Symposium, and Sea Art Festival. The Sculpture Symposium in particular was deemed to be a successful public art event, the results of which were installed throughout the city and dedicated to revitalizing cultural communication with citizens. The networks formed through the event have assumed a crucial role in introducing and expanding domestic art overseas and leading the development of local culture for globalized cultural communication. Founded 38 years ago, the biennale aims to popularize contemporary art and achieve art in everyday life by providing a platform for interchanging experimental contemporary art.
《물결 위 우리》We, on the Rising Wave
This exhibition takes Busan as a starting point in reflecting on the stories that remain or lie hidden within the history of Busan since the modern era and the changes in the city’s structure, and examining them in relation to the reality in the world. The “rising wave” in the title signifies the history and transformations of Busan, and the people pushed out of it and flowing into it, while also signifying global interconnectedness. Additionally, the wave is a metaphor for dissemination in an environment of technological change, as well as a description of Busan’s rolling landscape of seaside hills.
“On the rising wave” is an expression that refers to the ways in which the individual bodies situated in this terrain and history are closely tied to their environment, and to the situation of standing atop this endlessly shifting topography as we survey the future.
Through a structure of observing small-scale urban narratives and juxtaposing and repeating their connections to the larger world, the exhibition attempts to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the present. As it reflects of the conflicts and issue found within this context, it asks the ultimate question: How can all these different actors live together in this changing environment? Focusing on “migration,” “labor and women,” “the ecosystem of city,” and “technological change and placeness” as major keywords, the exhibition examines concrete events and situations in Busan that relate to them, as well as stories from other regions and countries that relate to them.
Busan has gone through modernization, national liberation, war, and industrialization to become what it is today.
Research on and understanding of the industry, history of migration, labor structure, and lifestyle of Busan as
a port serve as a foundation for looking at Busan as a concrete example of a universal situation in the world.
With the Japan-Korea Treaty in 1876, which subdued Korea to Japan, Busan became the first port open to
foreigners. Its formation and expansion as a port city since modern times, as well as the colonial influences,
contributed significantly to how the city was shaped. Busan was useful as a port for supplying goods, so it was
developed as an industrial site, accommodating factories and industrial facilities. With Busan’s topography of
hills and mountains with narrow coastal flatland, many people came to settle on the hillside or mountainside.
The settlements at the foot of the mountains gradually expanded as countless migrants, including one million
refugees during the Korean War, came to settle in. Busan, home to migrants from various regions and backgrounds,
is a hybrid and open city.
However, the rapid change in the industrial structure has pushed Busan to
shift its focus from the light industry to industry 4.0 amid declining population and deterioration in major
industries. The biennale format was born out of the attempts to highlight individual cities and regions in the
midst of advances in globalization and international exchange, and as of 2022, the third year since the outbreak
of the pandemic, the rosy outlook for globalization has collapsed, and some say the time of globalism is over.
Now is the time for us facing a time of transformation on the rising wave to go beyond globalism to
embrace Planetary Thinking. Against this backdrop, Busan Biennale 2022 would like to recognize the changes
specific to Busan, where the biennale is based, as well as changes facing other countries, and non-human life in
nature, and changes that are connecting with the entire planet and emerging and set forth a forum to inquire the
present time.