The most easily noticeable changes that occurred during the ‘Art Space @ SNU’ week were the random exhibitions that popped up around campus.
Going from lecture to lecture, classroom to library, library to home, can lead to a mundane pattern of university life. Especially well into the semester, Seoul National University (SNU) students are susceptible to fall into such a monotonous pattern without realizing it. In order to break the monotony, events such as ‘Art Space @ SNU’ are crucial.
Various information brochures were printed and distributed around campus
‘Art Space @ SNU’ was an arts week held on May 11 to 15. The five days were packed with various musical performances, art exhibitions, plays and other artistic expressions. This event was organized by the SNU Office of Student Affairs, the College of Humanities, the College of Music, the College of Fine Arts, and the SNU Museum of Art (MoA), with the purpose of allowing members of the SNU community to share their artistic abilities. The event occurred in a timely manner. Held along with the SNU Spring Festival, the arts week allowed for a lively ambience to embrace the campus.
Musical performances ranged from casual harmonica and guitar sing-a-longs by students unaffiliated with the music department, to formal Beethoven classics performances by the SNU symposium orchestra
Musical performances ranged from casual harmonica and guitar sing-a-longs by students unaffiliated with the music department, to formal Beethoven classics performances by the SNU symposium orchestra. Piano major students also demonstrated their flittering fingers, playing various solo piano songs. Even traditional Korean music was performed, such as the musical storytelling that is pansori, and the percussion music samul nori. Students had an opportunity to experience a wide range of music, from classical Western music to contemporary tunes, with pieces of traditional Korean melodies in the midst of it all.
Samul nori, traditional percussion music
Theatrical performances also constituted an important portion of arts week. The SNU Fine Art Drama Club performed a play based on a web-cartoon called “Related to Death”. The play presented the different stories of characters that have recently died and it made the audience contemplate on the different experiences individuals live through and imagine how our own approaching death may appear. More spontaneous forms of theatrical performances appeared. Various students under the name ‘Guerilla Theater’ sought to break conventions by having sudden acting surges, performing in the middle of the shuttle bus, inside a café, in the midst of the bustling cafeteria. Their purpose, they stated in the information brochure, was to break boundaries of theater and everyday life in a joyful manner.
Even a traditional Korean music was played @Art Space
The most easily noticeable changes that occurred during the ‘Art Space @ SNU’ week were the random exhibitions that popped up around campus. Areas where students were used to seeing empty space were filled with inventive art.
“Tag Me” exhibition in front of Shinyang Hall
One such conspicuous area was the grassy area located in front of the Shinyang Humanities Hall (Building 4). The exhibition labeled ‘Tag Me’ was installed in this empty space. Students from the Department of Design tied colored yarn from the branches of nearby trees to create an intricate web, like a physical manifestation of big data. In the information brochure the students wrote, “The ‘Tag Me’ exhibition is focused on having students who do not study art participate and express their inner artistic sensibilities.” The project had yarn out in the open and scissors so that anybody could come and connect their piece with other strings of yarn. Linking yarn with yarn shaped a new sort of interdependence, where one piece depends on the material strength of another. In addition, the open space was filled with these new, interdependent relations. The students explained the three-dimensional artwork would be translated into two-dimensional data and published, so that such an exhibition created by all the participants could be made into a lasting artwork.
‘Art Space @ SNU’ garnered positive opinions from the community. LEE Hyebin (Department of English Language and Literature) expressed her experience with the event. “I frequent the grassy area in front of the Shinyang Humanities Hall but it never occurred to me that the area could be used like this. ‘Art Space @ SNU’ was an important reminder of the need to have art in our lives.”
Written by OH Jung Eun, SNU English Editor, josefinaoh@snu.ac.kr
Reviewed by Eli Park Sorensen, SNU Professor of Liberal Studies, eps7257@snu.ac.kr