Tourist’s Dream
Participating Artists: Kyungah Ham, Yang Ah Ham, Stuart Hawkins, Adrian Paci, Lisl Ponger, Jaye Rhee, Hiraki Sawa, Bo Kyung Suh
Curated by Hyunjoo Byeon
Kyungah Ham, Travel & Journey, 2003-05, single channel video, 10min
Yang Ah Ham, Tourism in Communism, 2005, single channel video, 6min 36sec
Stuart Hawkins, Souvenir, 2006, single channel video, 22min
Adrian Paci, Centro di Permanenza Temporanea, 2007, single channel video, 5min 30sec
Lisl Ponger, déjà vu, 1999, single channel video, 23min
Jaye Rhee, Mediterranean, 2009, single channel video, 7min 50sec
Hiraki Sawa, Migration, 2003, single channel video, 6min
Bo Kyung Suh, Citydel, 2005, single channel video, 4min 59sec
Accompanied by the launch of the book Dual Mirage Part 2: Tourists Dream, the video screening Tourist’s Dream draws on varied tourists’ dreams and the underlying political, cultural and socio-economical elements that construct their dreams in this age of global mobility. Through the artworks by eight international artists, Tourist’s Dream is aimed at navigating the current issues around subjects such as: tourism, the tourist industry, territoriality, cultural identity, mobility, dislocation, migration and global communication. It explores the ‘mirages’ which tourism provides by rebranding spaces in a capital-saturated society and interrogates the fantasy of consuming a given culture. In addition, Tourist’s Dream interprets tourists not only as people who travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for leisure purposes, but also to the extent that it defines people who are in diverse migratory movements. On reflecting their desire for a better life, as tourists, Tourist’s Dream questions how global mobility expands a sense of geography by positioning oneself in a space away from everyday life and transforms the way to perceive the world; examining also the effects it has on the various migratory movements in our time.
In the screening, Kyungah Ham's Travel & Journey (2003-05) investigates the fantasy of experiencing exotic cultures and cultural hierarchies in tourism by exploring the phenomenon of theme parks in Asia that replicate the symbolic monuments and landmarks of Europe and America. In her Tourism in Communism (2005), Yang Ah Ham travels to the only possible tourist area in North Korea, Mount Kumgang, developed by South Korea’s Hyundai Group. The artist argues and depicts how tourism can only be a superficial exploration which is isolated from ordinary life, as the video was also shot on a touristic horse-drawn carriage. Stuart Hawkins playfully illustrates the artificiality of a touristic approach through her journey in search of the anthropologically perfect native CoCoMan in Souvenir (2006). The journey also reveals the pervasiveness of globalisation through its profound connection with the media culture, having caused the strange reaction of a seeking out of notions of pure cultural authenticity. Lisl Ponger´s déjà vu (1999) captures our desire for distant lands through its documentary sequences. This collective cliché of exotic otherness, combined with a series of narrations in various languages without subtitles, exposes the western-centered mode of perceiving the world and its hidden colonialism, consequently raising the awareness of our limited perception of reality. In Centro di Permanenza Temporanea (2007), which is named after an Italian refugee camp, Adrian Paci transforms an airport, a symbol of global mobility in our time, into a displaced space. A group of people standing on an aircraft boarding staircase represent migrants who are stranded “in between”, yearning for a better life, and thus the inhumane side of our ever-globalising world is revealed. Whilst Paci draws on the harsh reality of migratory movements in this age, the tiny humans and animals wandering around in the artist’s flat in Hiraki Sawa’s Migration (2003) poetically represent a restless journey in our lives; and simultaneously portrait of our paradoxical nostalgia in the global age where we constantly dream about different lives and lands. In Mediterranean (2009), Jaye Rhee creates her own Mediterranean setting in her studio with objects which embody images of the location of the Mediterranean. Rhee discloses how tourism and its industry construct common desires through distribution of a signified image, by envisaging the place with objects that can be found in daily life. In the work Citydel (2005), two separate videos parallel the passers-by looking at a girl in a bikini and a girl who enjoys her vacation on the artificial island in the Han River, which is located in the middle of Seoul. By creating a subtle rupture between them, Bo Kyung Suh questions what we dream of through travelling and where the mirage exists.
Participating Artists: Kyungah Ham, Yang Ah Ham, Stuart Hawkins, Adrian Paci, Lisl Ponger, Jaye Rhee, Hiraki Sawa, Bo Kyung Suh
Curated by Hyunjoo Byeon
Kyungah Ham, Travel & Journey, 2003-05, single channel video, 10min
Yang Ah Ham, Tourism in Communism, 2005, single channel video, 6min 36sec
Stuart Hawkins, Souvenir, 2006, single channel video, 22min
Adrian Paci, Centro di Permanenza Temporanea, 2007, single channel video, 5min 30sec
Lisl Ponger, déjà vu, 1999, single channel video, 23min
Jaye Rhee, Mediterranean, 2009, single channel video, 7min 50sec
Hiraki Sawa, Migration, 2003, single channel video, 6min
Bo Kyung Suh, Citydel, 2005, single channel video, 4min 59sec
Accompanied by the launch of the book Dual Mirage Part 2: Tourists Dream, the video screening Tourist’s Dream draws on varied tourists’ dreams and the underlying political, cultural and socio-economical elements that construct their dreams in this age of global mobility. Through the artworks by eight international artists, Tourist’s Dream is aimed at navigating the current issues around subjects such as: tourism, the tourist industry, territoriality, cultural identity, mobility, dislocation, migration and global communication. It explores the ‘mirages’ which tourism provides by rebranding spaces in a capital-saturated society and interrogates the fantasy of consuming a given culture. In addition, Tourist’s Dream interprets tourists not only as people who travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for leisure purposes, but also to the extent that it defines people who are in diverse migratory movements. On reflecting their desire for a better life, as tourists, Tourist’s Dream questions how global mobility expands a sense of geography by positioning oneself in a space away from everyday life and transforms the way to perceive the world; examining also the effects it has on the various migratory movements in our time.
In the screening, Kyungah Ham's Travel & Journey (2003-05) investigates the fantasy of experiencing exotic cultures and cultural hierarchies in tourism by exploring the phenomenon of theme parks in Asia that replicate the symbolic monuments and landmarks of Europe and America. In her Tourism in Communism (2005), Yang Ah Ham travels to the only possible tourist area in North Korea, Mount Kumgang, developed by South Korea’s Hyundai Group. The artist argues and depicts how tourism can only be a superficial exploration which is isolated from ordinary life, as the video was also shot on a touristic horse-drawn carriage. Stuart Hawkins playfully illustrates the artificiality of a touristic approach through her journey in search of the anthropologically perfect native CoCoMan in Souvenir (2006). The journey also reveals the pervasiveness of globalisation through its profound connection with the media culture, having caused the strange reaction of a seeking out of notions of pure cultural authenticity. Lisl Ponger´s déjà vu (1999) captures our desire for distant lands through its documentary sequences. This collective cliché of exotic otherness, combined with a series of narrations in various languages without subtitles, exposes the western-centered mode of perceiving the world and its hidden colonialism, consequently raising the awareness of our limited perception of reality. In Centro di Permanenza Temporanea (2007), which is named after an Italian refugee camp, Adrian Paci transforms an airport, a symbol of global mobility in our time, into a displaced space. A group of people standing on an aircraft boarding staircase represent migrants who are stranded “in between”, yearning for a better life, and thus the inhumane side of our ever-globalising world is revealed. Whilst Paci draws on the harsh reality of migratory movements in this age, the tiny humans and animals wandering around in the artist’s flat in Hiraki Sawa’s Migration (2003) poetically represent a restless journey in our lives; and simultaneously portrait of our paradoxical nostalgia in the global age where we constantly dream about different lives and lands. In Mediterranean (2009), Jaye Rhee creates her own Mediterranean setting in her studio with objects which embody images of the location of the Mediterranean. Rhee discloses how tourism and its industry construct common desires through distribution of a signified image, by envisaging the place with objects that can be found in daily life. In the work Citydel (2005), two separate videos parallel the passers-by looking at a girl in a bikini and a girl who enjoys her vacation on the artificial island in the Han River, which is located in the middle of Seoul. By creating a subtle rupture between them, Bo Kyung Suh questions what we dream of through travelling and where the mirage exists.
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