(Seosomun-dong) 61 Deoksugung-gil, Jung-gu
04515 Seoul
South Korea
Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Rachael Rakes as the Artistic Director for the 12th edition of the Seoul Mediacity Biennale, which will open in September 2023.
Since its inauguration in 2000 as an initiative of the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul Mediacity Biennale has earned international recognition for its experimental engagement with contemporaneity and changes of media in the city. The Biennale has presented conceptual experiences with and on media from its precursor exhibition SEOUL in MEDIA, which was held three times between 1996 and 1999. Since then, the Biennale has presented eleven editions, each embodying varying ideas and activities that resonate with its respective time.
Rachael Rakes’ appointment is the result of the international open call process which was held for the first time in the 25-year history of Seoul Mediacity Biennale, and has been confirmed by a committee of leading Korean professionals. Among the 32 candidates, the committee members agreed that Rakes’ proposal was “delicate and thoughtful on prospecting Seoul and Media, and exploring alternative imaginaries on locality, history, knowledge, and subjectivity, while extending the project’s historical continuum.” SeMA Director Beck Jee-sook said, “The 12th edition of Seoul Mediacity Biennale is creating a brand-new trial for its long-term future. As a representative contemporary art event of the city Seoul, I hope the upcoming edition will create an enduring platform for insightful and alternative aesthetic experiences for all visitors.”
The upcoming edition is envisioned as having close ties to the contemporary networks of Seoul and SeMA, and aims to investigate global and historical aesthetics of media infrastructures and artistic communication with a focus especially on alternative concepts of mediating and mapping. Rachael Rakes further said that “I am deeply honored to be selected in the Seoul Mediacity Biennale’s first international open call, after having followed this major initiative for the past decade-plus. I look forward to working with the SeMA and Biennale team and their networks, and with local collaborators and international practitioners to bring about imaginative frameworks for seeing, acting on, and re-drawing the lived environment.”
Rachael Rakes is a curator, writer, and teacher working with a long-time focus on research-based, time-based, and collaborative practices. She was the Curator of Public Practice at BAK basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (2019-2022), and Head Curator and Manager of the Curatorial Programme at De Appel, Amsterdam (2017-2019). Rakes is a programmer at large for Film at Lincoln Center, New York, where with Dennis Lim she co-organizes the international festival Art of the Real (2014-present). She is an instructor at the Parsons School of Design, New York, KASK School of Arts, Ghent, and EQZE, San Sebastian. She is also the co-editor of the anthologies Towards the Not-Yet (MIT Press, 2021), and Practice Space ([NAME] Publications, 2019). Among dozens of curatorial projects around the world, Rakes recently curated the exhibitions No Linear Fucking Time (BAK, 2021-22) and Decoders/Recorders: Steffani Jemsson/Samson Young (De Appel, 2019).
More details of the 12th edition of Seoul Mediacity Biennale will be announced in the coming months.
For news and updates, visit mediacityseoul.kr.
