[Now in Venice]② "The Only Way to Understand the Future Is to Reflect on the Past"

Interview with Park Kyung and Jung Soik, Co-Artistic Directors of the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition

In the days leading up to the Biennale International Architecture Exhibition, Venice was continuously enveloped by rain. Due to the persistent rain in Venice, which is not typically in its rainy season, each national pavilion faced difficulties in installing their exhibitions. The Korean Pavilion, which sourced most of its installation materials locally, was especially challenged but was still busy preparing the exhibition until the day before the opening. Despite the uncertain situation, co-artistic directors Park Kyung and Jeong Soik, who were actively preparing the installation on site, smiled and said, “These kinds of things always happen during exhibition preparations,” as they engaged in the final work. Below is a Q&A with the two directors.

Professor Park Kyung-mi of the University of San Diego, co-artistic director of the Korea Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition.
[Photo courtesy of the Korea Arts & Culture Education Service]

- What is the connection between the main theme of this Biennale exhibition, ‘Laboratory of the Future,’ and the Korean Pavilion’s theme, ‘2086: How Will We?’

▲ Park: The main theme’s ‘future’ can be seen as the direction we must go or the direction we desire, which is an area of unpredictability and uncertainty. The environmental crisis humanity faces now was previously unforeseen, and it has come upon us unexpectedly. Now, it has become difficult for us to predict the future. To move forward, we need something to believe in, and we thought of that as the past. Why should we look to the past and believe in it? Because the past is the very cause of today. The only way to understand the future is to reflect on our past. This is the answer the Korean Pavilion has for the ‘Laboratory of the Future.’

- The exhibition consists of site-specific projects and a game. What message do these two sections convey?

▲ Jeong: The projects exhibited as site-specific cases were conducted in Dongincheon Baedari Village, Gunsan in Jeonbuk, and Ansan in Gyeonggi. The goal was not just to find solutions for these specific regions but to derive implications that have broader universality. Issues like concerns about immigrants, as seen in the Ansan case, exist in every country worldwide. The conflict between preservation and redevelopment in Baedari Village is a common occurrence in developing countries. The problem of vacant houses in Gunsan is also a widespread phenomenon, with similar cases even in southern Italy. Rather than limiting these issues to specific regions or countries, we wanted to share our internal problems with other countries to approach them in new ways.

'The Future in Migration' installation artwork set against Ansan, Gyeonggi, exhibited at the Korea Pavilion of the 2023 Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition.
[Photo by Heeyoon Kim]

Park: The game is a program designed to show the actual condition of humans. The current environmental crisis is the ultimate result of everything we have done so far; it’s not that the environmental indicators immediately worsen because I threw away one more piece of trash or ate an avocado. However, by recognizing this relationship and realizing that what I, my neighbors, and our ancestors have accumulated over hundreds of years is now exploding, people begin to think about these connections. In the game, participants choose answers to questions, and those choices are translated into numerical impacts on the environmental crisis, which accumulate and are displayed as indicators. The most important feature of the game is unpredictability. The purpose of the work is to give the illusion of controlling a situation that we actually cannot control.

Jung So-ik, CEO of the Urban Mediation Project, co-artistic director of the Korea Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition.
[Photo provided by the Arts Council Korea]

- The exhibition theme ‘2086: How Will We?’ refers to the year 2086, when the UN predicts the global population will peak at 10.4 billion. However, South Korea is currently experiencing a steady population decline. What consciousness or message does this theme carry?

▲ Jeong: From the research phase of the site-specific projects in the three regions, one of the key themes was population issues. South Korea will face low growth due to population decline, and the UN’s announcement that the global population will peak in 2086 is a symbolic statement about the peak of humanity’s problems. Meanwhile, locally, issues such as vacant houses, development conflicts, and immigrant problems, which we present, will continue to arise and repeat.

The significance of the Korean Pavilion’s project lies in asking how we will respond when the predicted situation arrives, based on real cases. Many future predictions about population have been made in the past, some of which did not come true, and even when faced with situations, environments changed accordingly to maintain balance. Architecture embodies the politics, economy, society, and culture of its era. In this exhibition, rather than viewing site-specific cases like aerial views, we curated them through actual spatial experiences. Before urging future change, we wanted to convey a message that could lead to inner change and transformation in the mental realm of the audience.