MMCA
About the Exhibition
PROJECT HASHTAG weaves together the perspectives of emerging creators, exploring how advances in science and technology can shape and enhance the ways we interact. Now in its fourth year, the program fosters experimental and cross-disciplinary projects among Korean creators with an annual open call for artists, producers and researchers across diverse fields.
The two finalists for PROJECT HASHTAG 2023, Rice Brewing Sisters Club and lab B, epitomize this core mission with projects that spotlight the transformative potential of science and technology as a medium to enhance collective practices in our society. While their projects are distinct in subject matter, both exhibitions use interdisciplinary insights to explore the unbreakable links between humans, nature, and technology.
About Rice Brewing Sisters Club
Rice Brewing Sisters Club (RBSC, Ryu Soyoon & Son Hyemin) is an art collective interested in creating sustainable economic and ecological structures. The collective explores the notion of “social fermentation,” which describes their artistic practices rooted from the symbiosis between human and non-human species.
Since 2020, RBSC has researched marine microalgae and algae-derived materials in Korea’s largest coastal city, Busan. These tiny, unseen microorganisms, which cling to surfaces and crevices in our oceans, break down to produce resources that are consumed by plants, animals, and humans, creating a complex symbiotic cycle.
For their project Holobiont Galaxy, the collective created an algae colony constructed from agar-agar, a jelly-like substance derived from seaweed on which microorganisms can attach themselves to form a holobiont—an ecological entity characterized by complex symbiotic interactions. Far from a conventional use of the museum space, the exhibition is a living and breathing hub for generating and composting sustainable materials. In the true spirit of regeneration, RBSC will repurpose the algae colony after the exhibition and integrate it in Busan’s coast.
RBSC works across visual arts, performance, writing, space design, hosting, oral history research, workshops. Past exhibitions include Busan Biennale 2022 (2022), Refrigerator Illusion (2021), the 5th Indonesia Contemporary Ceramics Biennale (2019), Ecological Sense (2019), and major projects include Social Fermentation: Collective Writing Project (2021-), CheopCheopDamDam (2020), Soil-Soil-Land (2020), and Kkureomi: Unboxing with Sisters! (2020).
About lab B
The visual art collective lab B (Kang Minjeong, An Gayoung, & Choi Hyelyeon in collaboration with Jenin Kii) is a visual art collective who first joined forces in 2019 to propose a more flexible and fluid internet manifesto in the form of a web art project called “thelabb.net." Since then, the group has created workshops, talks, books, websites, and exhibitions to address various contemporary topics including the alienation reaped by AI and the shifting role of art in contemporary society.
In From Tilling the Fields to Hitting the MMCA!, lab B has created an immersive project exploring the ways automated society converts human recreation into intangible work that is harvested for data. For the exhibition, lab B spent several months growing and harvesting corn to make gangnaengyi, a Korean corn-based snack. At the exhibition, visitors are invited to play a farming simulation game, where they perform repetitive labor like planting and plowing corn to earn “corn coins,” which they can exchange for a bag of gangnaengyi. The layered project makes MMCA a site “playbor,” a type of labor that cleverly disguises itself as play, effectively blurring the line between recreation and work.
About the Program
PROJECT HASHTAG
PROJECT HASHTAG is a five-year initiative that fosters the next generation of Korean artists through an annual open call. The program provides support for the creation and presentation of experimental artworks that push boundaries. Reflecting the fluid and open nature of the hashtag symbol (#), this comprehensive program empowers emerging talents to engage in imaginative interdisciplinary collaborations that redefine artistic expression. The program embraces diverse fields, including painting, sculpture, new media, film, design, architecture, music, dance, linguistics, biology, physics, poetry, fiction, and hypertext. Annually, two creator teams are selected for a grant, an MMCA Residency Changdong studio space, and a showcase at MMCA Seoul. Launched in 2019, this program stems from MMCA and Hyundai Motor's decade-long partnership, dedicated to broadening Korean contemporary art's reach and impact.
Take a Closer Look
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PROJECT HASHTAG 2023: Archive Newspaper Film
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