Wooferten Artivist in Residency Program (II) has invited KIM Kang and KIM Youn Hoan, an artist couple from Seoul to stay in Hong Kong for the month of July. During the residency, they will present an exhibition, a talk and a series of workshop surrounding the topic of squatting.
When they were studying in France, KIM Kang and KIM Youn Hoan first came upon squatting. Squatting, is actually the act of occupying emptied or unused spaces in the city, without permission from the property owner or the government. There is a long tradition behind squatting, from feudal period as nomadic people erected their villages in feudal land, to its blooming in recent few decades. There are even Squat Villages in Europe and North America. Some countries have even developed laws to facilitate such property ownership changes. In Europe, squatting is not just for to satisfy the need of the homeless, but also include artists and activists. Their squatting are more for practicing different form of cultural activities and providing various services, such as temporal venues, social centre, library, and communal shop etc..
Since getting a taste of it in France, KIM Kang and KIM Youn Hoan dedicated to bring the movement home to Korea. In 2004, they set up the Oasis project, which hope to make squatting the platform for different form of group creative actions. Among their actions, included the occupation of the Korean Artist Centre to protest against the lack of physical space for artists to work.
In Hong Kong, a place which space is often considered a scared resource, suffering under the hegemony of land developers and the government, squatting has definitely its relevance. Rooftop housing, for example, could also be considered a form of squatting. Oil Street Artist Village, too, has been dispersed and the building being left emptied for ten years now, just because the land has been put under the list for developers auction possibility. Owe to the unlimited flow of capital and investment craze, house properties have also turned into means of making money, producing housing without real residences, while people are left without housing units. Also, as city redevelopment pushes on, people were driven out of their living neighborhood, and more public communal spaces have been commercialized. Squatting actually responses to such question on the basic need of people’s living spaces, and ask who control and decide on our spatial resources. Squatting is therefore not just an action declaring a demand, but also an attempt to have an independent life getting beyond control of capitalism.
Our two residency artists KIM Kang and KIM Youn Hoan will introduce us the history and theory of squatting, and their actions done in Seoul, plus the case of Mullae-Dong Artist Village, on how art could help opening up the imagination of spatial usages. S.G.I.S (Squat Geography Information System) three in a row workshop, will then focus on a local site as research subject, and work on a resource reserve for squatting practicioners.
Lastly, we have also arranged the artist’s mum and their nine years old daughter to teach us their unqiue family receipt on making kimchi, which you could bring home after the workshop.
HOST：WOOFERTEN
Support：HONG KONG ARTS DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
Curator：LEE CHUN FUNG
10/7(SUN)
3:00-5:00ＰＭ Artist Talk
KIM Kang and KIM Youn Hoan will introduce their squatting actions in Korea, their Oasis project, as well as activities happening in Mullae-Dong artist village.
6:00ＰＭ Opening party
S.G.I.S. (Squat Geography Information System) workshop in Hong Kong
1st Session 14/7 6：30PM
2nd Session 17/7 2－8 PM
3rd Session 20/7 6：30PM
S.G.I.S. is a resource reserve for squatting practitioners based on different contexts. In this series of workshop, there will be a brief introduction on the history of squatting, its development since the 60s, as well as KIM Kang and KIM Youn Hoan first hand experience out of their squatting actions in Seoul.
16/7 5pm You Dare Learn, I Dare Teach Workshop Series: Kimchi workshop
Korean is famous for their vegetable dishes of kimchi. Each family too, has its unqiue receipt on making their favourite kimchi. In this workshop, one could learn from the artist’s mum and lovely daughter of their family receipt, and produce some kimchi to ferment and serve back home.
About the artists:
KIM Kang and KIM Youn Hoan is an artist couple who have worked professionally in multidisciplinary visual art, curator and researcher of aesthetics for more than 2 decades.
As professional artists, their work and writing has been published and exhibited in Chile, Urguay, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, France, Estonia, Finland, Singapore, Indonesia and Japan and Korea.
They were the co-director of “Gang Gin” International residency program, “Action Tour Project” in Latin America and curator of “Chile Performance Biennale”. In 2004, they co-founded “OASIS Project”. In 2007, she co-founded project space LAB39, They had been researching on art community at Mullae-dong for 3 years.
Kim Kang is also currently a Lecture Professor at the Kyung Hee University in Seoul. KIM Youn Hoan had been the head director of Seoul Art Space. They co-authored the book Art of Squat, published in Seoul. Kim Kang also wrote Laboratory of Art and Life_Squat artistic, published also in Seoul, with its Japanese version coming out in 2011. www.squartist.org
