Imagination of 'Eccentric' Artists: Creators from 10 Countries Gather at Arko Art Center for 'In Situ' Exhibition

[Financial News] The 'In Situ' exhibition, which showcases the work of resident artists from the ARKO Art Studio of the Arts Council Korea (ARKO), will be held at the Arko Art Center in Daehak-ro, Seoul, until January 18 next year.
This exhibition presents the creative processes and research outcomes of ten artists from the first and second residency cohorts at ARKO Art Studio, which opened in Pyeongchang-dong, Seoul, last June. Their works are displayed throughout the entire Arko Art Center.
Ten artists were selected through an open call targeting both domestic and international art communities. Among them, five participated as the first cohort from June to September, while the remaining five have continued as the second cohort since last month.
The exhibition title 'In Situ' is a Latin phrase meaning 'in its original place.' The focus is on transferring the thoughts and experiments generated in the studio to the new context of the art center, thereby highlighting the immediacy of creation. Rather than showcasing only finished works, the exhibition foregrounds the layered processes built up through the artists’ residency, expanding the residency’s character into an exhibition format.
ARKO Art Studio is a program that invites both Korean and international artists to support creative work and exchange. This year, artists from Korea, Japan, Finland, Vietnam, Poland, Mozambique, and other regions have participated. The center weaves their residency experiences into a single exhibition narrative for visitors.


The exhibition is organized by floor, separating works by the first and second cohort artists. On the first floor, works by the five artists from the first cohort are on display.
Yusuke Taninaka (Japan) combines perspectives from traditional and regenerative medicine, visualizing healing and the passage of time through diagrams and medicinal herb drawings. His large-scale diagram merges the regenerative principles of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) with the worldview of East Asian medicine, offering a visualization of healing and regeneration. The installation includes drawings embedded with actual medicinal herbs, integrally exploring the relationships among science, tradition, the body, and time.
Lap (Vietnam), through his representative work 'Magpie Teeth Factory,' explores the networks where humans and non-humans, memory and desire, capital and faith intersect, using the magpie—a bird he frequently encountered during his stay in Korea—as a medium.
Hyangro Yoon (Korea) expressed the landscapes observed while walking between home and ARKO Art Studio in paintings. The series 'Shallow Water' captures the surfaces of water encountered along the waterways and mountain paths from Pyeongchang-dong to Buam-dong. The ever-changing light and its reflections on the water’s surface are rendered on canvas.
Valter Thornberg (Finland) presents an installation that exposes institutional fissures by using the administrative language and structure of the art center as his medium. Soomin Son (Korea) exhibits a video work that examines the layers of personal memory and the myth of social advancement in Korea through the motif of the piano. 'Interval Studies' stands out as it unravels the life cycle of the piano—a former symbol of Korea’s middle-class households—and the changes in Korean society through video.
On the second floor, new works by the five artists of the second cohort are featured.
Christian Schwarz (Austria), in his signature work 'Multipurpose Tower,' presents a sound installation that reveals the 'invisible structures' created by urban wireless communication infrastructure. He focuses on how the rapid expansion of mobile networks over the past decade has reshaped cityscapes, exploring the disguised forms of cell towers—such as those on rooftops, streetlights, and church steeples—referred to as 'stealth infrastructure.'

Park Jeong-hye (Korea) transforms her studio into a heterotopia that transcends the physical state and conditions of material work, connecting the real and virtual worlds on a spiritual level. In this sense, the studio is perceived as a 'garden'—a space where ambiguous objects, whose mysterious identities are suspended, pass through as part of a system that constitutes reality and cultivates symbols.
Seohui (Korea), through 'Wandering Room,' presents an installation that visualizes the emotions of instability internalized through experiences of non-settled living in foreign places. Katarzyna Mazur (Poland), in her project 'Archive of Edek,' juxtaposes Polish socialist-era family photos with historical images from Korea to explore layers of memory.
Additionally, Hugo Mendes (Mozambique) reinterprets collective memories rooted in Mozambican traditional crafts using contemporary materials. In particular, 'Entangled Empires: Rituals Beyond' reimagines the collective memory embedded in Mozambican craft traditions through modern materials and mechanical processes, unfolding narratives of memory, spirituality, and resistance within the Mozambican context.


During the exhibition, an 'Artist Talk'—where artists directly introduce their works—will be held on the 21st. In January next year, a roundtable featuring domestic residency program managers is also scheduled.
This exhibition is curated by Boseul Shin, program director of ARKO Art Studio, who has previously worked at Art Center Nabi and the Seoul Mediacity Biennale.
Lee Han-shin, director of Arko Art Center, commented, "This is a meaningful opportunity to witness the creative processes and achievements of the resident artists all in one place."
The exhibition is open free of charge every Tuesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Arko Art Center, located in Marronnier Park, Daehak-ro.
[email protected] Yoo Sun-joon Reporter