Urban Designs from South Korea: Soik Jung

*This talk is hybrid (in-person & remote). Capacity is limited. Please register ahead of time.

Biennale Architettura 2023, Korean Pavilion 2086: Together How?

This lecture will discuss the Korean Pavilion exhibition 2086: Together How? for the Biennale Architettura 2023 in terms of what it is composed of and how it works.

The ultimate intention of 2086: Together How? is to have visitors recognize the importance of their choice and change within themselves. All of humanity’s current crises, environmental, social, economic, etc., are the self-inflicted consequences of our own actions. Therefore, without a change in our thoughts, attitudes, and momentary choices in all areas, it will be difficult to find an exit.

To this end, the exhibition’s flow involves informing, collective participation and choosing, and recognizing results. Visitors are invited to become active participants and activists rather than passive spectators. Participants can see, in the works of the artists, information about current problems and what kind of future may come; participate and choose together in a policy voting game; confirm the results of their choices with sensory experiences and data on a scoreboard; and then recognize how their thoughts and specific collective actions were critical for determining the future.

works of artists #case study #site specific projects #mega city_dongincheon #middle size city_gunsan #village_gyeonggi province #fictional films #seeing #informing #future scenarios

policy voting game #RPG #policy committee #voting #scoreboard #cardiogram #dialectics #partnership #delegation #empowerment #arnstein #ladder of citizen participation

About the Speaker

Soik Jung (she/her), after 10 years’ practice as an architect and urban designer, established the Urban Mediation Project in 2008 and has since focused on research, publications, exhibitions, and education programs. She was administration director and associate curator of Anyang Public Art Project 2010, associate curator of Gwangju

Design Biennale 2011, secretary general of the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2017, and curator of the governance project Hanoi in the Future (2008–2009). Her artwork includes the exhibition Life: A User’s Manual (2012) at Culture Station Seoul 284, the exhibition Architecture for All (2020) at the Seoul Museum of Art NamSeoul, and the public art project Smaller, Slower, Closer (2020–2021). She is currently co-artistic director/-curator with Kyong Park of the exhibition 2086: Together How? at the Korean Pavilion ofthe Biennale Architettura 2023. Since 2018, her interests have expanded to include social work and coordinating architecture,urbanism, and public art with community practice. She programmed the disability art education program Going Outside, Expressing, By Themselves (2019) and wrote “Saeddeul Village Welfare Community Building Manual” (2021), “For All Who Want to ‘Speak’—A Diachronic Study of the Tendencies of AAC Users’ Perception and Demand Changes” (2020), and “A Case Study on Exployees’ Performance and Perception of Urban Regeneration Centers as Social Work Macro Practice” (2022). Soik Jung holds PhDs in urbanism, from Politecnico di Milano, and social welfare, from Soonsil University.

About Urban Designs from South Korea: Architecture, Ecology and Communities from South Korea

This series will present various designers from South Korea, who are engaged in urban and rural regeneration projects, graphic art, video projects and other projects that are taking place in South Korea. Presenters will discuss why design is crucial in Architecture, Ecology and Communities in South Korea.

Many of the speakers in this series will be presenting their works in the Project “2086: Together How?” that will be presented in the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Architectural Biennale in Italy, opening on May 20th, 2023. Presenters include “2086: Together How?” co-curator Soik Jung (Urban Mediation Project), and exhibitors, architect Yerin Kang (Society of Architecture), graphic artist Chris Ro (founder of ADearFriend) and video artist Jaekyung Jung (founder of shhh).

Bringing together architects, community leaders and artists, this project is about how we might be working together to endure current and future environmental crises until 2086 – the year when the global population is supposed to peak. Through a participatory video game, and with photographs, drawings, models and video and architectural installations, the exhibition is designed to invite audiences to imagine an ecocultural revolution through a critical reassessment of our capitalist, globalist, and colonial history.

They will present various communities with active regeneration projects in South Korea, inside the global city of Incheon, the colonial historic center in the mid-size city of Gunsan and in the rural areas of foreign migrant workers in Gyeonggi Province. These locations constitute a cross section of urbanization, modernization, and westernization in South Korea. They will show their collaboration with the local community leaders, and their ideas and design for the future of these communities. Each community is a case study which utilizes the community leader’s deep knowledge of the place and the architect’s spatial analysis to evaluate its current state, and propose site-specific future scenarios leading up to 2086.