CHANGWON SCULPTURE BIENNALE
SOUTH KOREA
SEPTEMBER 27 TO NOVEMBER 10, 2024
2024
The installation at the Changwon Sculpture Biennale in South Korea is composed of
iterations of the mirror figures at the UP Vargas Museum in Quezon City, Philippines. The
figures are perched on the Seongsan Shell Mound in Changwon, a historical hill composed
of layers of seashells and relics such as tools and pottery dating back to prehistoric times —
a piece of the past amidst the modern steel factories of the industrial city.
The figures’ peeling and expanding gestures respond to the theme of the biennale —
a “rewriting of traces that remain embedded in space”. Moreover, they suggest the unfolding
of stories, the reordering of constructs, and the passage of time.
Taking its title, “silent apple”, from a line in Ripe Apple, a poem by acclaimed poet Kim
Hyesoon, the 7th Changwon Sculpture Biennale 2024 lays the vertically erected sculptures of
the city on a horizontal plane, bringing them down closer to the ground. This newfound
horizontality moves freely between existing systems, offering a new mode of seeing the world
around us even as it invites questions around the relationship between sculpture and
language, labor and industry, local and regional. Just barely embedding itself into the
backdrop of the city, sculptures outlast the given populations of a particular era and continue
to evolve with the passage of time. With a spirit of excavation and attitude of connection, this
approach reaches for a new perspective on what we have long understood to be the language
of sculpture.
The sculpture installations at Changwon and at Vargas Museum appear
simultaneously, as if in parallel worlds, mirroring unique images and dimensions.
