In May, 2021, the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and the Korea Arts and Culture Education Service (KACES) held “Art Project,” an interactive program for artists and the general public in celebration of the International Arts Education Week proclaimed by UNESCO. Even though it was held during the global pandemic, it was received favorably for the way it connected people to their daily lives and offered artistic experiences under the theme of interaction between nature and humans. The process and results of the project as well as stories from the participating artists and members of the public will be made available on the official website until the end of this year.
For “Art Project,” seven artists from various fields, including visual, electronic music, dance, and media art created and shared works with citizens through online activities. It recognized the unavoidable fact that humans who are vulnerable to invisible viruses now must seek ways to symbiosis with all matters including animals, plants, and objects, not only exclusive to human-centric matters. Under the theme of interaction as a sense and the process of recognizing the impact of individuals’ actions on each other, the various Art Project workshops revisited and explored the conversion of our daily lives. Although it was a challenging declaration, both citizen participants and artists, who have repeatedly been cut off and isolated due to the pandemic, shared meaningful experiences.
Electronic music producer Dguru’s workshop “The Sound of the Universe: Collecting Daily Sounds,” used the cell phone to record and collect the surrounding sounds. “I wanted to let people know about the world that can be recognized by listening to sounds,” he said.
Choreographer Hur Yun-kyung’s “I and We, Remembered by the Connection between Bodies” had participants observe and imitate each other’s movements when they were unable to physically reach each other in this COVID-19 era.
Media artist Song Ho-joon imagined a new lifestyle on the premise of leaving the land through “It’s Time to Leave the Land: Ocean Coin.” Out to the sea but on a very limited space—a yacht—he shared fresh ideas on the environment, residential form, and economy of human beings living on the land.
Just Project’s workshop, “Tigers die and leave their skins; people die and leave their trash,” discovered our relationships and the stories between us and the overflowing objects around us. “The pandemic gave us an opportunity to think closely about death,” the Just Project said. “But death is all so natural. We hope this project has offered time to contemplate how we should continue to live.”
Media artist Choi Seung-joon’s “Curiosity Lens” offered an opportunity to guess and share other people’s stories through collaged footage videos from participants’ daily lives taken with a web application.
Paper Company Urban’s “Doom Drawing” was inspired by the fact that more and more people started to keep pet plants at their homes due to COVID-19 lockdown, but ironically many plants died at home as well.
The globe-shaped pop-up book Forests for Everyone, which collected over sixty drawings of animals and insects filed with vivid imagination and stories, was presented in the form of videos and photographs.
In addition to the opening ceremony of Art Project, the 10th International Arts Education Week included the UNESCO-UNITWIN Symposium. At the UNESCO-UNITWIN Symposium, arts education groups from 13 different countries discussed the role of arts education to respond creatively to global crises on diversity, equality, health, pandemic, and climate crisis.
In the midst of the global pandemic, KACES seeks new possibilities and values of arts education and suggests various ways to raise awareness of the importance of arts education. Please visit the official website of KACES for further information.
