Jeju Biennale: Heokkeugok Modakchigok Iyahong - The Art of Transformation

The civilization that flowered on Jeju, a volcanic island on the Eurasian plate, did not only flow in from the sea; it also arrived from the continental civilizations to the north. All manner of elements scattered, gathered on Jeju and mixed and transformed there, shaping the ecology, the geography and the way of life that is Jeju today. The 5th Jeju Biennale, entering its tenth year, attends to that paradoxical process of scattering (heokkeuda), gathering (modakchida) and transformation (iyahong) in Jeju's encounter with northern civilization. To that end the biennale takes 'Iyahong', the refrain of the Iyahong Taryeong that flowed in from the mainland and became another of Jeju's own folk songs, as both its theme word and its core concept. Through a Jeju imbued with the principles of climate and sustenance, the biennale sets out the modes of survival and the aesthetics that objects, nature, human life and the divine have shaped together.