Busan Biennale 2020 - Anthology

This collection of ten short stories and five poems were commissioned for the Busan Biennale 2020, Words at an Exhibition 《열 장의 이야기와 다섯 편의 시》 an exhibition in ten chapters and five poems. The eleven authors featured in this publication represent a broad range of genres, generations, and styles of writing. The selection not only includes detective tales, thrillers, science-fiction, but also the stories about history, revolt, gender, food, and love. The authors were invited to visit Busan, South Korea, to write short stories or poems about the city. Some stories have direct references to Busan and others are indirect ephemeral urban tales. The texts were given to more than 70 visual artists and musicians and they either responded with their existing works or produced new works for the exhibition, which can be explored in the accompanying catalogue and limited vinyl record.
In Words at an Exhibition 《열 장의 이야기와 다섯 편의 시》 an exhibition in ten chapters and five poems, the city is seen through a kaleidoscopic view of literature, sound, and visual art. The eleven authors function as the skeleton of the exhibition, and their texts, which are divided into eleven chapters, are spread across the city in several exhibition venues. Seven chapters by BAE Suah, KIM Hyesoon, KIM Soom, PYUN Hye-young, Mark von SCHLEGELL, Amalie SMITH, and YI SangWoo are situated at the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan (MOCA Busan) on Eulsukdo Island; three chapters by BAK Solmay, KIM Keum Hee, and Andrés Felipe Solano are placed in various spaces in Busan’s old downtown area; and the last chapter by Kim Un-su occupies a warehouse at the harbor on the island called Yeongdo. The selected neighborhoods represent significant locations in the history of Busan, where some of these stories take place. The exhibition and its stories invite the audience to become detectives in Busan and discover or rediscover different areas, spaces, streets, and buildings in the city.
The title Words at an Exhibition 《열 장의 이야기와 다섯 편의 시》 an exhibition in ten chapters and five poems is derived from the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s (1839–1881) piano composition, Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), which is a sonic interpretation of ten artworks made by his friend Viktor Hartmann (1834–1873).” Mussorgsky transformed Hartmann’s two-dimensional works into another medium, sounds. By borrowing this approach of interpreting and translating the Busan Biennale 2020 attempts to transform the city into short stories and poems and into artworks and sound.
The Busan Biennale 2020 is defined by the ten commissioned texts and five poems. In this exhibition, each text is described as a chapter similar to how Mussorgsky divided his works into ten compositions and five recurring, varied sound intermezzos. Between one and ten artists were invited to respond to each chapter. The artists were not asked to illustrate them but rather use them as a starting point or as an inspiration for their own expressions.
Through short stories, poems, sounds, and visual arts, the Busan Biennale 2020 offers the visitor a chance to explore the history and the urban landscape of Busan through its fictional layers.
I would like to express my most sincere and heartfelt gratitude to the authors, musicians, and visual artists, who all believed in this idea and produced unique and thought-provoking works for this anthology and exhibition.

Jacob FABRICIUS, Artistic Director, April 1, 2020

480 p, ills bw, 15 x 21 cm, pb, Korean/English

Contents
Introduction - Jacob FABRICIUS
BAE Suah - I Had a Single Song
BAK Solmay - Daily Walking Rehearsals
KIM Hyesoon - Ocean View / Tundra Swan / Jagalchi Sky / Haeundae Texas Queen Kong / Refuge
KIM Keum Hee - At Christmas…
KIM Soom - Green Is for Sorrow
KIM Un-su - The Seal Inn
PYUN Hye-young - The Refrigerator
Mark von SCHLEGELL - Busan en Rose
Amalie SMITH - Electricity Speaks
Andrés Felipe SOLANO - We’ll All End Up Rocks in a Lake
YI SangWoo - As boats and buses go by
Exhibition
Author’s Biography