Reconstructing Sequences

Seokundong

〈Bank〉, 2024.

Installation, wood, dimensions variable.
Commissioned by the National Asian Culture Center. Courtesy of the artist.

Seokundong is a spatial design studio as well as a furniture and object creator.

A bench refers to an elongated chair where several people can sit, but it is also used to express “passiveness.” Athletes who do not participate in a game become benchwarmers, and parliament members who do not hold office in the government are known as backbenchers.

Since the 20th century, Western politics and capitalist economies have reduced “sitting” to a passive act. Resting, chitchatting, and other everyday activities have been derided and deemed meaningless.

The artist intends to rediscover the essential meaning of the bench by focusing on the etymology of the word, which is related to banks that form naturally along a river. Riverbanks are places where people gather, share stories, and create meanings. The artist suggests the possibility that a bench might have served as a site of such lively actions.

All changes began with “active sitting.” As the saying goes, “history is like a flowing river.” The former Jeollanam-do Provincial Office that became a “site” of democratization is like a sandbank deposited over the deep grooves of Gwangju in 1980. It is a historical site where sedimentation and erosion are repeated, as well as a site of natural production that constantly draws people together, inducing them to exchange something. However, contrary to the peaceful expression “natural,” nature changes through a fierce process. Just as stones and sand swirling in a river are deposited to build up riverbanks, the artist demonstrates the “incline” that is necessary for active sitting.