A Grain of Dust A Drop of Water

The Gwangju Biennale, 2004

Gwangju Biennale

10 September – 13 November 2004

Curators: Yongwoo Lee, Kerry Brougher, Suk-won Chang

 

The Gwangju Biennale 2004 is a cultural forum that will experiment with established cultural actions, those that are centered around the specialist and cultural power, and transform them into a new concept: the spectator’s direct participation in cultural creation. The Biennale’s theme, “A Grain of Dust A Drop of Water”, will be the source of an active discourse on visual culture’s contrasting and fragmented viewpoints and their acceptance or rejection as a form of cultural discourse.

The Biennale’s proposed discussion on culture implies a reordering of essential values and, specifically, a redefining of the norms of those aesthetic decisions that, until now, have been determined by the powerful fiefdom of the elite. It also implies an experience of the various mechanisms that form the stage where individuals and groups distinct from one another express their expectations by transcending the established system of power that recognizes and produces art.

The Gwangju Biennale 2004, which will be held from September 10th to November 13th, is the place where one will be able to read art and culture as instruments of vibrant social networking and to read the mechanisms of its support system as the ambition that art, through popular communication, can function like a thoughtful and beautiful present for the spectator. Although “A Grain of Dust, A Drop of Water” is, on the one hand, but a small step in this direction, on the other hand, it is a big step, because far greater than matter is discourse. This theme, then, seeks to reveal great secrets beginning with the smallest ones. Dust and water are an ecological semiotics that justify interdisciplinary work.

The theme of Gwangju Biennale 2004 : A Grain of Dust A Drop of Water

“A Grain of Dust A Drop of Water” is a vital natural phenomenon and ecological interpretation of order describing the cycle of creation and extinction. Dust suggests noise and cries, covers the objects of our conspicuous consumption that are remains of our industrial society. A drop of water suggests the medium of creation, animates the inanimate thus allowing the cycle of life. Dust, together with water, heals the negative elements of the contemporary society, thus revitalizing the new cultural & aesthetics values in the present world.