Day 51

Jeff Schmuki  -- Residency Statement                         Seoul Art Space - Geumcheon

Seoul Art Space Geumcheon first attracted my attention in its aim to breathe new life into forgotten spaces--spaces that have been left behind in the wake of city development programs and urban decay. By turning the spoils of urban development into venues for artistic expression, empty factories and old buildings are revitalized, providing artists with much needed studio space.  This regeneration also facilitates interaction between artists and local residents in an under-served area.  Resident artists and area residents can work together to make a work of art, and in the process build a greater understanding of one another and their community.

This idea of revitalization or regeneration is central to my work as an artist.  In researching and exploring the Geumcheon area, I am struck by the hard working character of the people coming and going to the numerous factories within this mixed-use urban area.   From the streets, I easily find discarded commercial products such as silk thread, air filters, and nylon tubing that I refashion into a new purpose.

The projects carried out during my residency here at SASG explore themes of landscape and environmentalism, as well as sustainable living and working practices.  Combining Korean food plants and recycled materials with video and performance, I address how fixed beliefs about our environment and long-term sustainability must give way to imaginative alternatives.  In doing so, the art studio becomes a research laboratory where silk thread sand air filters serve as hydroponic structures for plant growth, allowing food to be grown in places where ordinary agriculture or gardening is impossible.

As a citizen of the world, I share the profound need for the alternative, collaborative and positive means of addressing the pressing social and environmental issues that plague both our planet and our collective conscience.  I hope to create projects that foster discussion, generate ecological awareness, and promote civic action through projects that are informed by and directly linked to the world and the communities I collaborate with.

Other projects I have implemented in the community include mobile garden units and green tagging where I wheel about a bright yellow garden or place small magnetic green spaces to engage the public and promote urban sustainability while reclaiming areas made unsuitable for cultivation. In the end I hope to extend with humor and levity, the ecological “knowledge of the moment;” by offering simple, positive changes that can be enacted to increase sustainability—an activity that can be replicated long after the artist and the art have moved on.  Individual choices and action matter…they all add up.