WEBZINE ACC

Bobae Kim, Designer

Bobae Kim is a community project organizer and designer focusing on the urban environment, local community, and environmental issues. She currently operates a design studio, "Co-"and works on a public design project that records and visualizes the local ecosystem. Her major projects include Munrae Billboard Star, where she collected and digitalized store signs from the Munrae-dong's steel complex, then processed them into an analog medium of silkscreen to represent the community's cyclical nature in retrospective aesthetics; Munrae Area, where she collected images and interviews about the paulownia tree in the community to create a multimedia work with using photographs, stories, illustrations, and digital media; and Co-Lab where artists from different genres develop their works into art products.

• kbobae@gmail.com
• Kimbobae.com

Everything in the world is connected and influences each other directly or indirectly. You may brush this idea off as a philosophical, religious proverb, but the global pandemic has taught us that it is a very real statement. Every day we see how personal problems go beyond the individual and spread to the community. It is not just the pandemic. Other social issues such as environmental concerns may at first appear unrelated from an individual perspective, but then soon we realize their effects on us, our family, and our neighbors on a daily basis. I cannot help but be aware of these issues and make choices and take action. Then, what if the ‘I’ in this is an ‘artist’? Artists would take action in their own ways.

Artists are imaginative, and they have already been tackling community issues through diverse art projects. In the case of designer Bobae Kim featured in this issue, she organizes public design projects to explore and find solutions to community issues. With her major in industrial design, ad graphics, and media design in colleges in Korea and abroad, she started her activity as an organizer with a project that involved recording old store signs near where she worked. Unlike past projects where she worked alone, collaborating with creators from different fields has helped her start building experience approaching one topic from multiple perspectives. Her major projects show how she forms a meaningful product while embracing diverse viewpoints about communities.

「Big Foot Print」(2013)

Designer Bobae Kim started dealing with social issues in her works back in 2013. While in college, her professors and friends were invested in local issues and the environment, which naturally led her to those issues as well. The first project born out of that period is Big Foot Print. This work aims to inform viewers how our day-to-day consumption impacts the environment. She developed a board game called "Big Foot Print" to encourage the audience to participate. The "footprint" refers to the carbon footprint, which indicates the total amount of carbon dioxide we generate. The game consists of a board and pieces (in the shape of footprints). Each player takes a differently-colored piece and rolls a dice to move their piece across the board by the number rolled. For each space that players' piece lands on, there is a question that players have to answer and act accordingly. For example, players have to answer yes or no to a statement like "Today I drank out of a plastic cup." If the answer is yes, the player has to add a bigger footprint layer to the print. As the game progresses, the footprints become larger, making the circular question spaces smaller. The game shows that the more we engage in activities with higher carbon footprints, the less space and resources we will have to stand on. Big Foot Print was intended as an easy way for the audience to grasp environmental issues.

Munrae Billboard Star (2018-2019)

Munrae Billboard Star (2018-2019) experiments with audience participation in a different way. The project evolved around Munrae-dong in Seoul, where many foundries and forges were located. The project aimed to record old store signs and vinyl lettering to memorialize the space that was being replaced by gentrification and urban renewal. Kim‘s studio was located in the area and became interested in the unique letterings on the foundries' sash doors, so she started collecting their images. It turns out these so-called "Munrae-font" letterings were created by someone who had been working as a sign and vinyl maker in Munrae-dong for 30 years. He created these letters without sketches or plans, using only a utility knife and his experienced hands. The collected images were presented at an exhibition, and the audience could play with them in a screen-printing workshop. They took the letters directly from salvaged foundry doors and printed them using a silkscreen, discovering the meaning of the words and understanding the significance of the space. As the audience tore off the letterings from the doors, Kim hoped that they would long remember the names of the disappearing forges and the work that was performed there.

Munrae Space (Paulowina Tree Project) (2020)

Whereas Munrae Billboard Star described above focused on recording the community's history through store signs and vinyl, the Munrae Space project from 2020 revolved around recording the community around the large, old paulownia tree in the area. A large paulownia tree used to stand in front of the factory on Munrae-dong 2-ga, but it was cut down when the commercial facility was built next to the factory. Participating artists wrote, photographed, illustrated, and worked with digital media on the topic of this historic tree. These multimedia works helped the audience to rethink Munrae-dong as an ecosystem where humans and nature coexist. On the last day of the exhibition, there was a screen-printing workshop using the project's images. Kim's projects usually include a workshop with the exhibit, which allows her to communicate with the audience about stories beyond the confines of the exhibition.

Co-Lab: Aerodynamic (2020)

Another one of Kim's projects in the Munrae area was Co-Lab. This artist collective formed by three artists (Yalu, Woonkim, Andor) and the director Kim was chosen for the YehwalGuhwal (a project for establishing the regional basis of artistic activities) hosted by Youngdeungpo Culture Foundation in 2020.
The purpose of Co-Lab was to independently develop art products that were practical and easy to produce. Three artists working in different forms of media worked for five months, developing art products with sustainable business value. Media artist Yalu created five types of mirrors, printing bright and lively images from his works. Woonkim, a tattooist, reinterpreted his works into a black owl and skull-shaped incense burner. Visual artist Andor used items he had long collected to create unique objets that could be used as paperweights. These products were exhibited under the title Aerodynamics at Gallery Space Nine in Munrae-dong from December 4, 2020, until the 10th. The three participating artists later mentored other artists who planned to join, hoping to create sustainable growth beyond the exhibition.

Plasticosmos (2020)

The theme of ACC_R residency for 2020, the year of COVID-19, was "Biophilia-a love of nature." Designer Bobae Kim was among several artists and researchers invited to the residency. She acted as an organizer for the residency project, collaborating with story writers, illustrators, media artists, and soap makers, the result of which was Plasticosmos exhibited at the showcase (November 24, 2020-Mar.1, 2021). A combination word of plastic and cosmos, Plasticosmos was inspired by how plastic waste floats on the ocean like stars in space. The work is divided into three parts, including a storybook, a quiz game, and soaps.
The first part is an accordion-shaped storybook about the dangers that microplastics and marine organisms growing on synthetic fabric waste or buoys pose on the marine ecosystem. The second part is a quiz game that aims to raise awareness of the detrimental effects of microplastics came from the waste generated in our day-to-day lives. Game participants each pull a question card that the opponent must answer. If the player fails to answer correctly, they must add a plastic piece to the buoy floating in a glass cylinder. As the buoy gets heavier and sinks into the water, the water level rises, and the animals drawn on the cylinder measuring lines go extinct. The third part of the exhibit is soaps in the shape of plastic buoys. The more the soap is used, the more harmful marine bacteria are cleansed, and as the soap gets smaller, the plastic buoy disappears. The soap emphasizes the importance of hygiene and safety in daily lives. The three-part Plasticosmos reminds us of the ways plastic circulates in the ecosystem and prompts us to reflect on the issue. Plasticosmos developed the environmental issues addressed in Big Foot Print further in a meaningful way.

Designer Bobae is constantly making something with her hands. She doesn’t mind if it is a digital work using computers or an analog project such as screen printing. While she creates something, she develops and clarifies her thoughts about next projects. This small but persistent labor of art is what drives her to work on new projects. She plans to continue exploring issues in her own neighborhood. She tackles the problems in the community through design projects that promote communication and understanding. That’s why she keeps her hands busy, keeps imagining new projects where artists and residents can enjoy and participate together!

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  Written by Jong-Ok Baek.icezug@hanmail.net
  Photo.Bobae Kimkbobae@gmail.com
  
  2021.08