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.
2022 Alma Heikkilä
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관리자 2022-12-16 13:59
These Processes Include Plasticity, Mutualistic Symbiosis, and Extinction, 2020 – 2022, Ink, pigment, acrylic, polyester, plaster, polymer resin, 285×985cm.
Algae is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. No definition of algae is generally accepted. Although cyanobacteria are often referred to as “blue-green algae”, most authorities exclude all prokaryotes from the definition of algae. Cyanobacteria are the first organisms known to have produced oxygen, and they can also produce cyanotoxins. Cyanobacterial blooms pose a serious threat to aquatic environments and human health and are increasing in frequency and magnitude globally. Direct sampling of the atmosphere has established that algae and cyanobacteria are components of the naturally occurring aerial biota. In comparison with other organisms, algae and cyanobacteria may comprise a largely ignored group of microorganisms in indoor environments.
The work looks at life from a more shared mutualistic and less individual perspective, where we notice the deep dependencies and the shared evolutionary history. The starting point of the work is to say that life always happens in some medium, some structure as air, water, soil… and it happens together with other life forms. This work is about life in water, in the sea about how all life has started from the sea and how we share the history in our bodies.
b. 1984, Pälkäne, Finland
Lives in Helsinki, Finland
Posing questions about the existential meanings of human and non-human beings, Alma Heikkilä focuses on themes such as the fluid boundaries of bodies, organic states of nature that cannot be perceived with the human senses, microorganisms including nematodes, spores, mycelia, algae, and the establish of symbiosis and relationships. Her work takes the form of large-scale installations using paint and plaster. At a time when climate change has left humankind faced with global food shortages, poverty, and extinction threats, Heikkilä turns her attention to a world transcending human perceptions, focusing on the interdependence between human beings and nature and the autonomous role of the microbes that fill our time and space. Heikkilä is a founding member of Mustarinda, an association of artists and researchers pursuing natural and cultural diversity and the fusion of art and science. Her major solo exhibitions include Ubiquitous, Not Visible or Recognizable in Any Form (Grazer Kunstverein, Graz, 2020) and ‘, ‘ mediums,.’ ” bodies,.’ ” ∞ logs,∞ ‘ , ‘ /~‘ holes, .’ — °habitats / /`want to feel (,) you inside | *, (Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, 2019), and she has also taken part in the group exhibitions The Ocean (Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, 2021) and Shapeshifters, the Age of Change Is Upon Us. Again. Always (Malmö Art Museum, Malmö, 2020).