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 Mounira Al Solh
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관리자 2022-12-16 14:30
Lackadaisical, Sunset to Sunset, 2022, Embroidered parasol structure, Ø350cm.
NOA Magazine Iss.4, 2022, Magazine, Dimension variable.
Freedom Is a Habit I Am Trying to Learn (Rogine), 2019, Singlechannel video, color, sound, 11min. 39sec.
The Mother of David and Goliath, 2019, Oil on canvas, 155×120.5cm. Courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery.
The Mother of David and Goliath, 2019, Oil on canvas, 160×120cm. Courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery.
The Mother of David and Goliath, 2019, Oil on canvas, 157×118cm. Courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery.
The Mother of David and Goliath, 2019, Oil on canvas, 164.4×120cm. Courtesy of the artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery.
Since 2008, Mounira Al Solh has been publishing the magazine NOA (Not Only Arabic), which shares the stories of women who are resisting oppression and violence towards women in Arab societies. For political reasons, the magazine cannot be publicly distributed in Beirut, where it can only be read in covert locations, such as a library or hotel room, through prior arrangement. The text of NOA Iss. 4 was translated into Korean through a collaborative workshop at Hantya, a feminist bookstore in Mangmi-dong, Busan. Audience members can read Issue 4 of NOA in a tent Al Solh embroidered herself. The embroidered tent with the Arabic words for each hour of the day reflects the artist’s memories of her unique experience with her mother during the Lebanese civil war. At night, Al Solh’s mother allowed her to repeatedly make holes in her pajamas and stitch them back together by candlelight, a meditative act that helped her fall asleep amidst the noise of war.
The documentary film Freedom is a habit I am trying to learn is also introduced within a tent. This is about Mounira spent 24 hours with four women—Rogine, Waad, Hanine, and Zeina—in the cities where they now live, Zutphen, Washington DC, Oslo, and Sharjah, respectively. All four of them cannot live anymore in their countries of origin, Syria, and Lebanon. For this biennale, we see the film version with Rogine’s part. The installation also includes four paintings, collectively entitled The Mother of David and Goliath, which depict various women. The paintings visualize personal dreams and memories, fictional stories of writers, stories of women suffering in confinement, and the actions of people who oppose patriarchy in their daily life.
b. 1978, Beirut, Lebanon
Lives in Beirut; Amsterdam, Netherlands
Through works of painting, embroidery, text, sound, video, and performance, Mounira Al Solh captures the unspoken memories and traumas present within the history of the Middle East, a home region that people were forced to leave due to war, religious conflicts, and sociopolitical upheavals. Her work has been presented at solo exhibitions including A Day is as long as a year (BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 2022), Positions #5: Telling Untold Stories (Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven, 2019), and I Strongly Believe in Our Right to Be Frivolous (Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2018) and shared at such international events at documenta 14 (Kassel, 2017) and the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). She was one of the artists representing the Lebanese Pavilion of the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007. Since 2008, she has been collaborating with other artists and intellectuals to publish the magazine NOA (Not Only Arabic), creating a forum for speaking out by assembling the stories of women within Arab society who are resisting the continued oppression and violence they face. In addition to this involvement in individual micro-histories, Al Solh has also been researching women’s engagement and ideas with respect to revolutions in the Arab cultural sphere.