Location
Seoul, South Korea
Project
Exhibition
Event
2017 Seoul Biennale of Architecture & Urbanism
Location
DDP, Seoul, S. Korea
Curators
Dongwoo Yim, Calvin Chua
Team
Dongwoo Yim, Rafael Luna, Jungmin Kim, Hyesoo Oh
Organized by
Storefront for Art and Architecture, Seoul Design Foundation
Furniture/Wallpaper Designed by Nameless Architecture
Photos by Kyungsub Shin
Concept
As part of the Cities Exhibition in the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2017, <Letters to the Mayor> will try to generate conversation between two distinct cities; Seoul and Pyongyang, the capital of South and North Korea. Since the Korean War in the 1950s, conversation between the two cities that shared thousands of years of history has been discontinued, and hardly, was there any effort to make city-to-city conversation even when there was one between nations. Thus, <Letters to the Mayor(s) ; Seoul + Pyongyang> will not be limited to showing architects’ voices to the city mayors but create a platform that can be shared between two cities.
<Letters to the Mayor(s) ; Seoul + Pyongyang> is composed with three sections; Letters to the Mayor of Seoul, Letters to the Mayor of Pyongyang and Letters to the Mayor of Seoul and the Mayor of Pyongyang. With total one hundred letters from local and international architects, artists and scholars, mayor of each city will understand a variety of voices, perspectives and views of them. Especially, Letters to the Mayor of Seoul and the Mayor of Pyongyang may include hopes and wishes from architects to the cities that may catalyze dialogue between two officials. It will also show how architects perceive two cities differently or similarly, and therefore, will be a good chance for audience to understand each city.
In short, <Letters to the Mayor(s) ; Seoul + Pyongyang> is a peaceful message that Seoul is sending to Pyongyang as its counterpart, and we hope that it is not an one way but both ways conversations. And it is grateful to invite architects, artists and scholars in the world to participate to this initiative effort of Seoul-Pyongyang, city-to-city, dialogue.
