HOLO
Seoul Museum of Art +
Space Onsang
Nanji island is an island named Nan(蘭) of Nancho(orchid) and ji(芝) of Jicho(plant). It was a small land with enough view to be called 'Flower Island' until it was decided as a landfill site in 1977. From 1979 to 1993, the mountain was built with all kinds of garbage. In only a decade or so, nature has been buried, leaving nothing but a historic record of the orchid-filled island.
With the redevelopment project to build the World Cup Stadium at Nanji and Sangam-dong, where a swarm of flies used to be flying, was bulldozed and turned into a real estate development along with a park to be built on top of a garbage mountain.
From 2006, decomposing garbage underneath the park created hydrogen and methane gas that redirected the city's effort to use the energy to put it back into the grid. Currently, its buried past slowly rises to the ground as an immaterial energy.
33 meters high Nanji garbage island, 1988.
SeMA Curator - Park Soon-young
Onsang Curator - Huh Namjoo
"HOLO-" is a prefix to define whole or totality. In Korean, the phonetic word "holo" [홀로] describes a similar form but with a connotation of isolation.
Researching its buried history, seeping past, and still ongoing redevelopment and gentrification, materials and elements from abandoned homes and shops were collected to reconstitute its sense of presence through lights and immaterial forms.
