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 Franco Salmoiraghi
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관리자 2022-12-16 14:12
The island of Kaho‘olawe is the smallest of the major Hawaiian islands and in recent years has become one of the strongest symbols for the rebirth of traditional Hawaiian culture. The island contains numerous archaeological sites and is considered sacred by many Hawaiian people. In 1941, after many decades of being environmentally ravaged, Kaho‘olawe was confiscated in the heat of World War II and became a bombing target for United States military forces. It was continuously battered by bombs, artillery and gunfire until the last bombing missions were held in preparation for Operation Desert Storm. Shortly thereafter, as a direct result of the militant lobbying for access by the Protect Kaho‘olawe Ohana, the island was ordered returned to the people of Hawai‘i by President Bush and the military presence ceased in 1996. For members of the Ohana, the return came after twenty years of dedicated work to save the island and a strong resurgence of cultural and spiritual practices. However, explosive and poisonous ordinance remains over much of the land and in the surrounding ocean fishing grounds. It is within this context that these photographs were made to document the transition from destruction to the rehabilitation of Kaho‘olawe. Franco Salmoiraghi’s expeditions to Kaho‘olawe began in 1976 when he joined a group of Hawaiians making the first legal landing on the island in over 35 years. The photographs presented here are made during several trips to the island in 1993-1995. These works explore contrasting elements of the island: the presence of the military culture on maneuvers and the Hawaiian people who came to practice their traditional culture and religion; the destruction of the island by reckless farming and bombs with the resulting erosion and the continuing attempts to bring life back to the island by planting, erosion control, and spiritual offerings; and the presence of the warriors of both cultures and their need to find a way to co- exist on the island, clearing the bombs and military refuse from the land. With these photographs, the photographer has explored the remaining delicate and fragile beauty of the island and the destruction and disregard it has sustained; the perseverance and long term commitment of love for restoration of the‘āina , the earth, by the Hawaiian people.
b. 1942, Illinois, USA
Lives and works in Mānoa Valley, Hawai‘i, USA
Italian-American Franco Salmoiraghi moved to Hawaiʻi in 1968 to teach at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, and began pursuing photographic work offering an unvarnished record of everyday life in the local environment as it changed in the decades that followed. His photographs document important moments in Hawaiian history, and places that no longer exist, including some that disappeared in the wake of eruptions of Kīlauea Volcano, and images of workers and the sugar industry that were recorded over thirty years as the industry shut down. He photographed the lives of many people across the islands, including demonstrations by Native Hawaiian activists and their allies protesting the military use of the island Kahoʻolawe as a US Navy bombing range from the 1970s through the 1990s - when the island was returned to the Hawaiians. In his travels, he observed and photographed various places, landscapes, and the Na Kua‘aina - people living the life of their culture who have helped keep the spirit of the land alive. Salmoiraghi’s major solo and group exhibitions include: Affirmation and Defiance: Artist Collaborations Against US Empire in Hawaiʻi (Hawaiʻi State Art Museum, 2022), I Ola Kanaloa! I Ola Kakou: Photographs of Kahoʻolawe, 1976–1987 (Arts & Letters Nuʻuanu, Hawaiʻi, 2022), Kahoʻolawe: Rebirth of a Sacred Hawaiian Island (Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., 2002), Waipi‘o: Land of Curving Water (Bishop Museum, Hawaiʻi, 1988), Photographs of Japan (New England School of Photography, Massachusetts, 1977), and Vision and Expression (George Eastman House, New York, 1968).