Thursday 4 October 2007

TOMORROW

Fw: TOMORROW‏
보낸 사람: Jan Christensen
보낸 날짜:2007년 10월 4일 목요일 오후 4:42:01
Dear friends,

I have been back here in Seoul for a few days. It has
been extremely hectic and just a lot of work and I simply
have not had time to sit down and write or call.

Please find the press release attached.

Hope to see you all!

All the best, Jan

TOMORROW‏

보낸 사람: info tomorrow(info.tomorrow@gmail.com)
보낸 날짜:2007년 10월 2일 화요일 오전 9:58:22
받는 사람:
Dear Friends,

From October 4th at Kumho Museum of Art and Artsonje Center in Seoul, I am excited to be inaugurating a new project entitled Tomorrow. Realised with the collaboration David Ross, Dan Cameron, a dedicated team of young coordinators and curators, and 32 exciting artists, Tomorrow offers challenges to the impossible, probes utopia and shares dreams and visions that may not otherwise find space in the context of contemporary society. In the first realisation of this project here in Seoul, Tomorrow is the main event of Platform - Seoul, a collaborative festival put on by Samuso in collaboration with the galleries and museums of Seoul's Bukchon neighbourhood. Intended as the beginning of a conversation, I really hope that this project can carry on into the future, travel to different places and become a geographically transient platform for the exploration of post-national possibilities of cultural language. If you have a chance to be in Seoul between October 4th and December 2nd, please be to stop by and see what we are beginning. Attached is the official press release with more details about the project, and below are contents of the same. I hope to see some of you here.

Warmest Regards,
Sunjung Kim



Tomorrow
Artsonje Center (October 6 – December 2, 2007)
Kumho Museum of Art (October 6 – November 4, 2007)
Seoul, Korea


Participating Artists
Alexandre Arrechea, Lee Bul, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Jeonghwa Choi, Jan Christensen, Democracia, Cao Fei, Liam Gillick, Jens Haaning, Pierre Huyghe, Long March, Sarah Morris, Antonio Muntadas, Inhwan Oh, Mai-Thu Perret, Sergio Prego, Navin Rawanchaikul, Tobias Rehberger, Martha Rosler, Allan Sekula, Tino Seghal, Bruno Serralongue, Shimabuku, Doho Suh, Tadasu Takamine, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Ozawa Tsuyoshi & Chen Shaoxiong & Gimhongsok, Lim Tzay Chuen, Haegue Yang, and Xu Zhen


Director's Statement
The perception of time keeps changing. Living in a totally different pace from the past, we just focus on the present in rapid daily life. However, the most important thing at this moment is the prospect of the future.

Tomorrow intends to create a chance to view the future with hope and vision.
This will offer the vision toward the bright future through diverse activities organized by communities. In addition, Tomorrow will look at the future with infinite possibility by means of searching for ideal fictions and looking into the power that forms the shape of the future.

Possibility in shifting society offers hope, but at the same time it asks that responsibility be taken. The future gains infinite possibility to change in any direction, depending on the choices we make. Tomorrow will look into upcoming changes in this context. Everything becomes re-considered with shifted valuation. The more diverse changes and developments occur, the more enlarged possibilities our society will have. One of the prominent changes is the increase of communities. As the nation gets smaller and private citizens extend their power, the community develops as a concomitant phenomenon. While the great discourses are dismantled, new proposals in relation to activities of communities could be made as an alternative way.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, Russian avant-garde artists sought for Utopia through their works. The artists in Tomorrow propose 'challenges to the impossible'. With Tomorrow artworks we will share dreams, visions and fantasies that cannot be allowed in 'reality'.

Motivation and Outline
Large-scale contemporary art exhibitions and fairs have become territories of state initiated or market driven spectacle meant for bureaucratic, political and economic ends. In such contexts artists, curators and other cultural actors must struggle against being cast as public relations, propaganda or money-making tools. It is in the midst of such struggles that the cultural possibility of our age is being distorted and defined.

With Sunjung Kim's 2006 exhibition and film programme Somewhere in Time as its prelude Tomorrow is an independent attempt to bring global art and local community together to engage in a cultural conversation less encumbered by the standard prerogatives of state and market. Intended to be more a mobile, multi-local conversation than a traveling show Tomorrow's fluid crew of internationally active artists, film makers, curators and others will work in conjunction with partners in various localities to realize visual and verbal manifestations that explore human approaches to the unknown moment: Tomorrow.

In its inaugural manifestation in Seoul Tomorrow's primary aim is to be an interactive platform that engages various sectors of the local audience in a conversation about possibility. To achieve this the multi-media contemporary art exhibition is accompanied by more than a month of public programmes including: video screenings, a symposium, artists talks and various other events including a sunrise breakfast hosted by Berlin-based artist Shimabuku.

Under the title of Is Tomorrow A Better Day? the initiative was originally conceived in the ashes of the Korea at ARCO affair - when Sunjung Kim, along with her co-organisers including Dan Cameron and David Ross among others, was pushed out of her position as curator and commissioner of artistic programmes for Korea's national representation at ARCO'07. At that time directly confronted with the limitations that the tendencies and imperatives of state can impose on contemporary artistic expression Sunjung Kim and her team felt a very tangible need to clear a path towards a better way. And the result is this experiment we now call Tomorrow, an endeavour that hopes to become a geographically transient, yet enduring outpost for the free development of language in the context of a cultural conversation that grasps for the yet under-realised possibilities of post-national community.

Website (beta): istomorrowabetterday.wordpress.com
Contact: info.tomorrow@gmail.com

Venues:
Artsonje Center
43 Gamgodang-gil, Jongro-gu, Seoul, Korea 110-200
Open : 11:00-19:00 Tuesday,Wednesday, Sunday
11:00 - 21:00 Thursday ~ Saturday
Closed on Mondays
Tel: +82 - 2 - 733 - 8945
Fax: +82 - 2 - 733 - 8377
URL:www.artsonje.org


Kumho Museum of Art

78 Sagan-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Korea 110-190
Tel: (02) 720-5114
Open : 11:00-19:00 Tuesday ~ Sunday
Closed on Mondays
URL: www.kumhomuseum.com

The organizers of Tomorrow are proud to have the sponsorship and support of ISU Chemical Hyundaicard Co., Ltd, NHN Corp. (Naver), Asiana Airlines, Inc., Centre Culturel Francais, and Pro Helvetia.

Tomorrow is a new cultural project Curated and Directed by Sunjung Kim; produced by SAMUSO: Space for Contemporary Art; Associate Curator - David Ross; Advising Curator - Dan Cameron; Assistant Curators – Tyler Russell & Seungmin Yoo