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.
Kangkangee Village (Heeyoon Jung)
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관리자 2022-12-19 10:24
Busan Biennale 2022 Exhibition Team
Originally known as the Daepyeong-dong neighborhood, Kangkangee Village is the birthplace of the modern Korean shipbuilding industry, located across from Jagalchi Market in the area between the Yeongdo and Namhang Bridges. The name “Kangkangee” comes from the banging sound (kkangkkang in Korean) made at the ship repair yard when barnacles were being removed from boats and corroded paint was being pounded off with a hammer. While this difficult work of noisily pounding foreign matter off of boats in Kangkangee Village seems like the sort of job that male technicians would have performed, this was not the case: for the most part, it was the women of Daepyeong-dong who earned a living doing this high-intensity labor, spending all day dangling precariously from a rope as they swung their hammers. It was a harsh working environment, and the “aunties of Kangkangee” suffered falls and occupational hazards such as hearing loss, tinnitus, and arthritis.
Korea’s first modern shipyard, the Tanaka Shipyard, was built in Daepyeong-dong in the late 19th century. In the wake of Korea’s liberation, the area burgeoned into a shipbuilding and ship repair mecca as Korea developed its own independent technology. It earned such a reputation for shipbuilding and repairs amid the deep-sea fishing boom of the 1970s and 1980s that even today, people speak of how there “isn’t a boat they can’t fix in Daepyeong-dong.” In its heyday, it was described as a place where “even the dogs go around with 10,000-won bills in their teeth,” as well as the location responsible for the “second-highest tax revenues in Busan.” Today, various repair sites, service centers, and ship part suppliers remain, offering a continued glimpse into the history of Busan’s shipbuilding industry development.