Master Plan for Duam-dong has been running since spring 2016 in the Nuribom Community Center in Duam-dong in the outskirts of Gwangju. The project was set up through several workshops with local inhabitants, public talks, and urban actions. Together with local inhabitants the artists are working on several issues related to the neighborhood’s near future, for instance the regeneration of small street-gardens and the development of a rooftop plant camp. The project is further contextualized by a series of open lectures taking place during the month of September. The artists will present documentation of the process in the community center.
Apolonija Šušteršič (b. 1965, Ljubljana/Lund) invited Dari Bae (b. 1970 Seoul) to cooperate on a GB11 commission, and upon visiting Duam-dong they decided to work in the area together with the local community. The area was built in the ’80s, after the Gwangju Uprising, as a low-density area of detached houses and small family villas. The neighborhood grew into a peculiar, charming place with its own character quite different from the high-rise housing that is extremely popular in Korea.
Operating across urban planning, environmentalism, activism, and academia, Šušteršič’s practice questions the relationship between public space and free-market politics in order to develop a contemporary notion of spatial justice and community. An example is The Hustadt Project: from 2008 to 2011, Šušteršič worked (and lived) in Hustadt, a translocal neighborhood built in the ’60s framing the campus of the Ruhr University, Bochum. The project became a process that culminated in building a community pavilion, a public facility proposed by Aktionsteam – a group of Hustadt activists – relying on cooperation and user participation to create arguments for negotiation with local authorities.
Bae’s interdisciplinary practice is focused on sociopolitical subjects within urban environments. Her practice is research-based and projects are formed through a dialogue and collaboration with participants: Urban Project DASSI (founding a cultural center for the homeless in Seoul, 2015) was composed of a series of workshops and activities co-operating with writers, architects, artists, social workers, the homeless, and local dwellers. MM
self-presentation:
I met Dari in London back in 2013. Most of our discussions took place while walking through Battersea Park. Dari had just started her PhD at the Royal College of Art, and I was supposed to tutor her. We had much to talk about – we shared many concerns and interests, despite our different upbringings and cultural backgrounds. We are both interested in people, participation, social relations, and the public sphere. More than the final product, we prefer to engage in the process. Paradoxically, we both admire clever design and engaging architecture, even if we still give priority to the concept. Yet what triggers our minds is always a specific situation in time. We want to challenge the role of the artist in today’s society; therefore, we both see a potential in working beyond the white cube. Thus, in order to construct an argument, we devise participatory action with performative events.