ART CITIES: Seoul-SeMA Learning Station, Shift

View of SeMA Learning Station at Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2021. Courtesy of Seoul Museum of Art. Photo: Yoonjae KimSeoul Museum of Art (SEMA) opened at this current location in May 2002. SeMA is working to become a world-class art museum by holding refined exhibitions such as the SeMA Blue for young artists of Korea, SeMA Gold for middle aged artists, SeMA Green for elder artists, Special Overseas Exhibitions, and International Exchange Exhibitions – collaborations with famous art museums from around the world.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: SeMA Archive

Exploring the values of learning based on mutuality in response to this year’s institutional agenda of SeMA, learning, the program “SeMA Learning Station: Shift”, consists of multifaceted activities and programs unfolding through Public Meetings, Planning Meetings, Situations, Rehearsals, and Dialogues. Questioning the subject of learning in museums, one of the galleries in SeMA has been transformed into SeMA Learning Station, a physical infrastructure as well as an online hub, where various subjects and communities gather, propose, discuss, and learn. Conceived as a site for encountering and learning, SeMA Learning Station will be maintained until the end of 2022 and enact its key role in expanding learning experiences in museums. Public Meetings brings together curators, mediators, educators, and researchers to delve deep into the ideas of learning in relationships for two days online. The participants are invited to exchange thoughts and experiences of learning, and further are drawn into the Glossary Talk to negotiate the different contexts coming from where they are each situated to learn from one another. After Public Meetings has concluded, it will be uploaded on the SeMA YouTube channel by February 20. Planning Meetings aims to design a blueprint for the learning space as well as the architecture of relationships encompassing the different conditions of individuals including body, age, social status, cultural background, gender, language, etc. It attempts to build different ways of encountering, design sensorial models to introduce a different language system for other senses, and a different language to adopt a method of communication among people. Situations is a series of events to tackle “obstacles toward mutual learning” such as preconceived relationships and the hierarchy already embedded in museums. Induced by the invited artists, it creates an unexpected series of situations with behaviors and conversations that may seem inappropriate or strange in the setting of the museum, in which the audience is asked to rethink their roles and positions in museums. Rehearsals is designed to allow learning in the process of encountering others. It motivates people to transgress the experience and knowledge coming from their different conditions and backgrounds, and to come together to foster learning through these differences and develop a new understanding and share their situated knowledge. Dialogues brings together partnerships between SeMA and London-based research center Afterall, and attempts to create a dialogue on learning, pedagogy, and art education in museums using the SeMA Collection and the British Artists’ Film and Video Study Collection. Each session will expand the discourse to larger learning communities, inviting the students from Central Saint Martins (CSM) and Seoul National University of Science and Technology (SNUST).

The participants include: Maria Acaso, Afterall (Adjoa Armah, Adeena Mey, and Chloe Ting), Jee-Sook Beck, Johoon Choi, Chung Seawoo, Collection and Research Division of Seoul Museum of Art (Chae Ha Kim, Seo Hyun Kim, Yeon Jae Lee, and Kyung Hwan Yeo), Charles Esche, Narae Inni Jin, Ieeryoung Kim, Jeongah Kim, Seong Eun Kim, Lee Hanbum, Bona Park, Claudia Pestana, SeMA Learning Station Planning Team, SHIN SHIN (Donghyeok Shin and Haeok Shin), Hyunseon Son × Su-Mi Jang, students from the Department of Fine Arts at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, students from the MRes Art: Exhibition Studies program at Central Saint Martins, Yeounjin Sung, Michelle Wong

Photo: View of SeMA Learning Station at Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2021. Courtesy of Seoul Museum of Art. Photo: Yoonjae Kim

Info: Curators: No-one Kwak, Bo Bae Lee, Gahee Park, Naim Seo, Sejung Shin, Seoul Museum of Art (SeMA), 61 Deoksugung-gil, Jung-gum, Seoulm South Korea, Duration: 15/1-20/2/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 10:00-20:00, Sat-Sun 10:00-19:00, https://sema.seoul.go.kr

View of SeMA Learning Station at Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2021. Courtesy of Seoul Museum of Art. Photo: Yoonjae Kim
View of SeMA Learning Station at Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul, 2021. Courtesy of Seoul Museum of Art. Photo: Yoonjae Kim