Eunji Cho

Here are Han Juyoun and Eunji Cho on the phone and online from banga-bange HQ, after our meeting today. Eunji is one of the first artists to come visit us in the Yeonhee-dong space, and she has a very interesting project which will be reworked for our exhibition. We are all looking forward to seeing (and hearing!) it soon...

I see grey camels in the horizon

Today, at fifteen hundred hours, Power and myself were sent to collect more food and supplies for the inhabitants of Fort Banga Banga, situated at the top of the hill with plenty of green buses and people too old to dance to the gymnastic song. As the two of us desended from the steap hills of Yeonhee-Dong in our chic urban explorer gear, the black pixels from Civilizations 3 revealed traces of Pizzas lost in translation a Peter Pan bakery and numerous Korean giant-miniature-dog-cats licking windows that we had to fight of with our bare hands.
Last nights fights at the front with Erlend and Jan was still lurking at the back of my head, but as I won the stone scissor paper battle at the break of dawn, I was rewarded a soft coach, a price that would later give me the sense of well-being ( best described as feeling of a hand scratching your chest, up and down. With the nails. Not hard. But firm and with confidence and compassion.)
A coach you say ? No tiles nor the floor ? Yes. A woman working in her wine bar with cats, not the MA GO - but the SUN took Jan, Erlend and myself to her quarters last night - a refreshing experience after having slept with white and pink people on brown madrases for several nights in a row. An experience that will probably subconsciously make me buy tri-color ice cream for the rest of my life.

It`s zero-dark-thirty, and I am checking out. Tomorrow I will continue looking for a future wife for Mr. Sudoku

More for the Invitaition card

초대장 관련 내용입니다.
Please includes follwing info on the invite
1. Title need to be both Korean and English:
연희동 195 레지던시 프로젝트: 100개의 아이디어와 10000개의 조화

The Yeonhee-Dong 195 Residency Project:A HUNDRED IDEAS AND TEN THOUSAND COMBINATIONS

2. Our blog http://195seoul.blogspot.com
and www.project195.com

3. When: dates of the whole project from 21th of june to 15th of july Opening dates 3rd of july @6pm??

4. Where: address of the gallery in KOREAN and English, other contact details.
195-12, Yeonhee-Dong, Seodaemoon-Gu, Seoul, 121-110 Tel: +82 2 338 7059 Fax: +82 2 338 7059

5. Name of the participants: With Erlend Hammer, Bjørn-Kowalski Hansen, Jan Christensen, Power Ekroth, Jooyoung Lee, Youngho Yoo, Eunji Cho, Jung-lim Han, Kyungah Ham, Jaejun Lee and others. (need to be alphbet order)

*DONT FORGET "THE PAID POST STAMP SYMBOL" need to be postioned on the coner of the top right.
*sponcer's logos

Are we missiing anythingelse? Please let Bjorn know ASAP as he is going to off to a bar in gangnam soon. dead line is by monday.

Jooyoung Lee

Jooyoung met Jan at the Chang-dong residency in Seoul back in 2004, and this is their first collaboration since then. She has been invited to initiate several projects at 195 Yeonhee-dong and found this opportunity to invite the Yeonhee-dong crew over to Seoul. Jooyoung's practice of work ranges from video to spraypainting - quite an unusual practice in Korea, but the common denominator seems to the the emphasis on words and statements. Her themes include the confusion of languages and a focus on gender politics. Her education and long stay in London has given her good insight in the European way of thinking and has made her a very good representative of Korean culture. Jooyoung has been busy with several projects and exhibtions in Seoul and recently held a residency in Melbourne. She likes to surf and fry in the sun on the beach when she is not gulfing down Australian barbeque, and plans to serve some good proper fat steak for the rest of the gang and any visitors one of these days.

[In her spare time, Jooyoung likes collecting Grateful Dead-bootlegs, watching Cheech & Chong-movies and staring into space saying "wow" and "dude" at odd intervals.]

Power Ekroth

Power is from Stockholm. Power probably knows Jan the best, almost everybody else in the crew are pretty much new to each other. They worked together occasionally on different things, from lectures that she arranged for Jan to shows she arranged for Jan to other things she takes care of for Jan. She is the aunt of Jan's son (2-year old Joar Alexander Pablo) in Stockholm and takes care of him for Jan when Jan is not in Stockholm. Power takes Pablo on walks after work every day as long as it is not raining and plays in the sandbox as often as possible. Pablo even learned to say "Power" even before he could say mummy and daddy.

Power has traveled extensively and writes regularly for publications like Flash Art, Contemporary, Artforum, Frieze and she is a contributing editor of the Stockholm-based paper SITE. She likes some good dancing. Though this is her first time to Seoul, she has already rocked the dancefloors at Via, Bar Nana and Cargo. She is going to take up a short residency at Paik Hae Young Gallery during the stay in Seoul and can be reached by email at powerekroth@gmail.com.

Eunhee Park

Eunhee is assisting us on our trips around the city. She is an aspiring young artist and attending art school in the US after the summer. Being a young Seoul-gangsterine, she knows the dark corners of this town and can help us with free entries to most clubs in Hongdae. Eunhee has a friend in US Army camp at the Sobingo compound and can get American cigarettes and Juicy Fruit at the backdoor anytime. Her art work consists of large-scale canvases with silk-screened images taken from Vogue and Playgirl on top of images of wrecked Black Hawk helicopters and burning tanks. One of Eunhee's first missions will be to guide Erlend and Power to the Hermes superstore (and the gallery) in Kangnam one of these days. We expect her to make them a good deal on a scarf.

Erlend Hammer

Erlend Hammer is the academic in the crew. He is currently doing his Ph.d at the University in Bergen, Norway. He has been attending a curator course at the Academy of Art in Bergen as well. For the last year he has been running a project space called... it is actually secret. You will have to ask him about it (his Skype name is "-----------", or call him on +82 108 33 82 561). Erlend likes good music and a good complex challenging thought. His special interest is doing sudoko blindfolded when he is not preparing art history lessons and researching contemporary artists.

Gallery view, June 24 (19:00)

Launching the project

Trying to figure out how this "Villa Medusa/Big Brother in the Gallery" will work out we kind of had a major meeting today. I'm a bit concerned about the structure of the project and try to stress the importance of clarity when approaching other artists from here to join in the collaboration. The discussion turned into more clear ideas and Jan suggested that mine and Jan's differences in approaches towards both art and artists will be the starting point in a "bad cop-curator v/s good cop-curator"-approach, where the discrepancy between our curatorial approaches can be the initiating point towards describing the project. Jan and I have had this "bad cop/good cop" for a long time. I remember once in a seminar I invited Jan to participate in, a lecture at Robert Meyer art school in Oslo many years ago, where we were talking about curatorial approaches. Already then he was advocating how artists should just let go of their work and not fuss about what the curator does with their work, while I was advocating that the artist is responsible for their work at the end of the day and that the curator has the role of the mediator between the artist and the spectator. Whatever. It is a complicated discussion and maybe I'll write a proper essay about it while here that can be published somewhere else.

What the project really aims at? It will maybe come as a revelation soon. I hope. It is a "work in process" and I need to process it a bit and will most likely turn into the "bad cop-critic" of the whole thing while in the project itself, hehee. I think that this is in the likings of Jan's anyway.

Bar Nana with Bjørn-Kowalski on the wheels

Street vendor in Seoul

We were all quite baffled how successful this street vendor in Seoul was...

Gallery view, June 24 (02:00)

The Holy Grail

Maison Hermés Dosan Park is the fourth of the Maison Hermés prestige stores, after Paris, Tokyo and, hmm, New York? South Korea is apparantly the fourth largest market for Hermés. Not only do I want to go there for my own enjoyment (and possible economic ruin) it would be awesome to get Jan into their gallery. They've had two exhibitions so far: Daniel Buren and, grr, somebody else that I forgot. Then it turns out that the curator there was actually the one who curated the first show Jan was part of in Seoul. That should mean that this is now a done deal, no? Only snag now is how to work into the deal that I somehow get a lifetime supply of ties or something.




Buren at Maison Hermés Dosan Park.


More here and here

For the Invite, Web Communications etc.

i know Bjorn is preparing our for our invitation card, thanx lot!! The design need to be done by next tuesday as we have to PRINT/POST out by next thursday lateast AND we all need to prepare the images of our invite for the Korean email magazine called Neolook, http://neolook.net/ by middle of next week somehow. it needs to be sent 5 days before the opening.

following info need to be checked and soon will be collected:

1. Up to 700 x700 pixel 5-7 images, Jpg files
2. Text within 700 words in Korean( either or Power or Erland write INTRO of our project and i can translate, so it dosent need to be a like Press Release, just a short introudction about 200-300 words should be ok)
3.it costs about 110,000 won (including tax): its on my budget!!

Days 1 & 2 & 3

Met up with Power at Kastrup after finishing and filing my review of Transiteatrets performance of "Die Maßnahme" during Festspillene i Bergen in May. Then we met Bjørn and Jan at Frankfurt. Semi-first time meeting Bjørn, since we had only briefly said hello once at Rasmus Hansen's place in Berlin. Our first on-hand contact with the people of Korea came when Bjørn knocked a woman and/ or her daughter in the head on his way into the pre-boarding gate-area of Lufthansa flight 712. Slightly envious of the people seated inside the All Nippon 747 at the next gate, we found our seats inside our Airbus 330. Bjørn and Jan at 54 H and K, Erlend and Power at 56 H and K.

Bjørn and Jan immediately fell into game-mode and started playing Call of Duty, which, after some time, I too got involved with. In spite of Jan’s claims that I got off to a great start I really only went into my old habit of walking around, aimlessly and away from the action, getting killed occasionally.Power and I then talked about the importance of avoiding the trap of exotification of everything on our trip. Lost in Translation-style jetlag-fueled wide-eyed what-the-fuckness is one thing, and can be lots of fun to see or read, but photographic evidence and endless reflections of everything that is "different" in this oh so weird weird country is just a kind of American-style post-graduation get a brain morans travelling abroad for the first time bullshit.

The first day went by pretty much as Power described. We were very good and stayed up until late so as to avoid getting bad jetlag. We could rightly be very proud of ourselves as we went to sleep at a local jimjilbang (For the record: I'm somewhere inbetween Power and Jan on the merits of these places. I love the sauna-action, but I have to admit a certain tendency towards Power-style diva princess-requirements when it comes to sleeping arrangements. I.e. wouldn't mind a bed at some point here.)

So anyway, on the second day we of course went and got trainwrecked at various clubs and now we're here a bit past midnight of day 3. Day 2 ended around 8 a.m. this morning when Bjørn, Jan and I stumbled back into the jimjilbang and went to sleep on the skinny, skinny mattresses again. Miraculously day 3 didn't start until 16.30 when we all finally woke up again and, after more lovely sauna-action, went for breakfast at, ahem, Starbucks. So yeah, our excesses last night means that we're actually back on Norwegian time and even though I guess we're kinda sleepy right now, I think we're basically fucked. And oh yes, the humidity right now, according to the Yahoo weather service is 88%. We are sitting at each our computers listening to Etta James. Jooyoung just asked Bjørn to look at something. Bjørn replied with asking if she could send a link.

Photos from Insa Art Space/Choi Soo-jung

Already day two Bjørn, Erlend and myself headed out to Yongsan Electronic Marked to browse for some cameras before going to Insa Art Space where we were participating in a round-table talk with the artist Choi Soo-jung courtesy of Heejin Kim (curator, Insa Art Space). We met up with Power and Jooyoung in Insadong before the talk and had a bite. Bjørn took these photographs of us during the talk. I took some of the quick installation views. It was a very nice discussion and a great way to get introduced to the local scene and getting started with our work.

Dong Koh did an excellent job with the translation during the talk.

First days in Seoul

Invited by Jan Christensen who in turn was invited by Jooyoung Lee to do a work-shop project in Seoul is intriguing of course. Three weeks in Seoul with a project to make together with Erlend Hammer and Bjørn Kowalski Hansen whom I don't know well at all, will certainly prove to be interesting and most likely also a tad challenging. I know for certain that I already had a bit of a challenge during the first 24 hours here in Seoul.

I really belive that Jan's idea was to kind of grind our personalities down so much that he later can start to mold new personalities that suit better into the project and will make us more easy to work with - something like the Stepford wifes if you get my drift? Anyway, the first step in Stepfordizing us was the long flight over to Seoul. Erlend and I had some sleep thanx to a couple of Melatonin-pills that we popped, but it was no good sleep of course. Jan and Bjørn were playing PlayStation the whole flight through, so they were a bit tender upon arrival in Seoul. Serious heat in combination with a never ceasing rain (it is the early Monsoon-season here) kept us at our toes the whole days. Jan, who already at the airport of Frankfurt announced that there were under no conditions going to be any talk about sleep before at least ten o'clock in the evening so that we would somehow escape the jet-lag was the first one to regret the words. He actually fell asleep during lunch/dinner over the welcoming shoulder of Bjørn's. He woke up 10 minutes later kind of refreshed.
















Jan and Bjørn

Jooyoung who had met us and taken us to the gallery with a welcoming and warm hostess-attitude, helped us all the way through all our first newbie-mistakes and questions. After leaving our stuff at the gallery which will turn into a work-station soon, or has already in a sort of way with us immediately getting our lap tops on the tables to check our e-mails. So, anyway, she took us to something I've dreaded a long time: the Jimjibang. Now, Jan has always been very enthusiastic about this sleeping arrangement that is cheap (like 10 Euros a night) at a relaxing and bathing institute that is open 24 hours. Basically you do aerobics, shower, bathe, get massages or prpare a new hair-do and then you can go relax and rest on mattresses in relaxing-rooms. Here one can sleep. If one can sleep in a room with loads of other people that is. Now I am not a fan of saunas, bath houses etc at all in general. Sure, I too go swimming in bath houses on occasions every other year or so, but I find the hygiene-issue in large bath a bit... disturbing. But, hey, I am a good sport and was really willing to give something Jan was so enthusiastic about a try at least one night.

But listen to this - one is given some clothes to wear after the bath in the relaxing rooms. Everyone wears them. It is a plain t-shirt and shorts. I hate shorts. I hate t-shirts. Yeah, I really really do hate to wear that sort of clothes and I haven't worn anything like it for centuries. I can't remember when I last had a regular t-shirt on. It must have been when I was 7 or so. Back in those days I only wore pink clothes - I was very particular on that issue. Nowadays I only wear black. I am very particular about that too now. I was born stubborn and particular about my ideas. Now, my worst nightmare actually came true that night - not only did I have to wear shorts and t-shirt, but *horror horror shiver shiver* the clothes came in pink.

So, imagine my state: dead-tired, no posture in my body left at all, feeling like a nearly drowned rat (from walking long in the rain) and having to wear those extremely unsexy, baggy pink pig clothes and without make-up... I thought I was fortunate to be dead-tired, I thought that this would ensure a good nights sleep even though I had to share a room with many others. I was wrong. My integrity was grinded down even more. The mattresses provided is not anything like the mattresses I'm used to, the Ikea-sort of thing. These mattresses in Korea are more like... hard flat plastic ones. I took two of them and felt like the princess lying on a pea, tossing and turning and breaking my back. And of course - no pillow. Sleep was naturally interrupted by all these people coming in and chattering all night and maybe we were like 30 people "sleeping" at once in a small, hot and humid room. When I finally fell asleep I was awakened promptly by the aerobics class starting with the song "FUN FUN FUN" pumping at the loudest volume. I didn't think it was so fun...

If Jan wasn't such a wonderful lovely man whom I treasure like gold I would have been pissed off like hell, sulking away and most likely considered going back home. Now all I could do was ignore my bad back, my non-sleep and just go along with the flow. Jooyoung generously offered me to stay with her instead so now I'm on her floor instead. Next day came with nice weather and first stop was breakfast before the talk at Insa Art Space that Erlend, I and Jan were asked to do with the Korean artist Choi Soo-jung. The Insa Art Space have an archive with artist's portfolios that Erlend and I will dig deeper into on Wednesday. The talk went on for something like 1½ hours and it was a very relaxed talk.
















The gang of five, Erlend, Jan, myself, Bjørn and Jooyoung, went to grab a bite at a Chinese restaurant before hooking up with a British ex pat DJ who took us to Bar Nana where Bjørn already had a DJ session gig, playing sweet soul music and us supporting him. Jan was supporting the DJ with beers all along the gig, I was supporting Jan with "powershots" - presumably alcohol free boosterizers and other liquids with more alcohol, and we were all kind of drinking a lot and dancing along. It was a great gig and when Bjørn quit to play the dance floor was immediately emptied. The gang of five continued to party at The Loft. The owner of the place joined us as well as two artists. I got some really nice crotchshots of Bjørn (and Erlend too) here.


When we left the last club the sun was up and the time was like 6 o'clock already. We had messed up our attempt to get rid of jet lag and be on Korean time schedule already But we had made new friends (particularly one insisting girl who for some reason had an idea about getting both Jan and myself in her bed for the night) and had a great time. Needless to say, we slept in the next morning.














Erlend and Jooyoung

Calendar link

This is the public LINK TO OUR CALENDAR/SCHEDULE during the Seoul visit.

Details could also be added as comments below.

Link and phone numbers

Thanks to Power and Erlend for setting up the blog.

For all our readers, please visit this LINK to the website for general info.

You can call us on the following phone numbers:

Bjørn, Erlend and Power +82 108 33 82 561

Jooyoung +82 169 771 2561

Jan +82 186 961 252

I'll be back with more entries and photos. Right now I am struggling... Last night was an amazing night out with Bjørn-Kowalski playing records at Bar Nana, and we were out until 06.00.

First post

Hurray! We are in Seoul. We are Bjørn, Jan, Jooyoung, Power and Erlend. Here we will detail our activities at Yeonhee-Dong 195 and establish a space for intensely critical self-reflexivity. You know, the way we art-folk do.