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.
Brothers Home (Haenam Park)
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관리자 2022-12-16 16:30
HK Research Professor, Seoul National University Asia Center
Many people arrived in Busan in the wake of the Korean War’s outbreak. Some roamed the streets to earn a living, leading the local press to call for their segregation from society. In the early 1960s, the city of Busan signed contracts with a private operator to have vagrants taken into the Yeonghwasuk workhouse in the Jangrim neighborhood. But in 1971, that contract was revoked due to human rights violations and accounting fraud. Park In-geun, the operator of the Brothers Home for Orphans at the time, changed the institution from an orphanage to an internment facility for vagrants. He entered a contract with the city in 1975, establishing Korea’s largest home for vagrants in Busan’s Jurye neighborhood. When the Chun Doo-hwan administration came to power with its rhetoric about “purifying society,” the Brothers Home became a focus of national attention. Examples include the 1981 film Guests at the Last Stop (1981) and the 1982 TV series Birth.
But inside the Brothers Home, human rights were being violated. The operators colluded with the police and city to have vulnerable members of society admitted by force, regardless of whether they were in fact vagrants. Through abusive treatment and forced labor, they sought to achieve maximum gains at a minimal cost. At least 657 people died, while those who emerged from the home alive struggled to survive as members of society afterward due to trauma and illness. The Brothers Home tragedy was not merely the result of abusive operators; it emerged out of collusion among different parties, from a state calling for the “purification” of the state to the local leaders demanding that vagrants be segregated from their community. Many issues related to the situation remain unresolved, including the matter of an apology and compensation from the national and local governments and remembrance and reflection of the local community.