WEBZINE ACC

Science and technology make our lives more convenient and comfortable. Food refrigeration technology was indeed a revolution in food culture. Now, constantly opening and closing the fridge door has become the norm in modern society. The more we have become dependent on it, the larger refrigerators have become, and it is common to see fridges with several hundred-liter capacities. In terms of functions, too, there are fridges made specifically for kimchi, cosmetics, and wines. And recently, the cold-chain supply originally developed for maintaining the freshness of produce during shipping has expanded to include shipping temperature-controlled medications and electronics, suggesting nearly infinite possibilities for growth in the refrigeration industry.
At a time when it is difficult to endure the scorching heat every day, an interesting exhibition titled Refrigerator Illusion: Open your fridge is on display right now at the ACC Creative Culture Institute.

01. Exhibition Entrance

This exhibition was developed by ACC/ACI around the theme of ‘food’ as part of its research on ‘Food, Clothing and Shelter’. It presents the history of using ice, the evolution of refrigeration technology over the past hundred years, and the changes in food and living culture. It also brings to light various social issues and topics behind the convenience of fridges. It reflects on the society that has come to depend so much on it from multiple perspectives. There are four parts to the exhibition, each narrating the human history, evolution of refrigeration, and the history of changes in food and life. The collection includes works by visual artists, designers, products with a brand name, documentary films and broadcast footage to offer a multifaceted perspective.

Part 1. Chronicle of the Coolness

The first part, Chronicle of the Coolness, illustrates the history of ice and fridge through timelines, artworks, and advertisements. Five real-life fridges are displayed in the center of the gallery space.

02. Part 1 Exhibition Overview

You can see from an wooden refrigerator reflects its historical past to an early modern fridge that separates the refrigerator and freezer. Chronicle of the Coolness: An Incomplete Timeline is packed with details on the left wall. The chronological table allows for easier viewing about how humans stored their food supply before the invention of refrigeration. It includes the following: the first human record of ice in 1800 B.C., the sixth-century Sukbingo from the Three Kingdoms Era in Korean history, the first refrigerator released in Korea, the super-low temperature refrigeration system for vaccine storage. The gallery also displays works by Jun YANG titled The Emperor of China’s Ice and An Artist who Buried 1000kg of Ice in the Ground, which shows some data about the process of his contribution to the Austrian Sculpture Park. The work is based on the legend that ancient Chinese buried large blocks of ice in the ground during winter and dug them up during summer. The section on Reading Refrigerator Advertisements was interesting, too. Through the message idolizing the developed countries and the slogans emphasizing health in advertisements, the viewers can peek into the past and cultural shifts over the course of each period.

Part 2, Open Your Fridge!

Part 2, Open Your Fridge! is a collection of works that deal with various issues related to the fridge from diverse perspectives. In God We Trust (photo 03) by Minje Jeon is a multi-channel video installation. Using seven screens, he shows the processes of refrigeration and freezing through diagrams and data. He also shows the principle of circulation and, lastly, the issues of global warming. By showing the deification of the refrigerator in a spectacular video, he adds the following explanation: “He defies the law of nature. By this, he not only gives us our daily bread but embraces our corruption to preserve our lives.” He twists the double-sided nature of the fridge with metaphors. Mihwa Lee/E.j.Domoso presents 2,000kcal—0kcal, which visualize the issues of the aged generation with the daily average calorie intake for one senior citizen in a video. The content of the fridge and its calories reflect the way in which senior issues ranging from labor to isolation.

03. Minje Jeon, In God We Trust

Part 3. Big Fridge Small World

04. Quatre Caps, Not Longer Life

Part 3, Big Fridge, Small World, covers the production, shipping, and consumption of various food through convincing themes and exhibits. Quatre Caps’s Not Longer Life (photo 04) are five photographs that reinterpret the works by Claude Monet and the Baroque master Caravaggio. They look like well-painted still-life paintings from afar. But when examined more closely, they are plastic wrapped fruits and vegetables, drink bottles, and alcohol bottles that could keep fresh and cold using a refrigerator. These still-life photographs with a touch of black humor reflect the overconsumption and lifestyle in pursuit of convenience in the modern age. In the Screening Room, we can find Director Valentin Thurn’s 55-minute documentary film Taste the Waste that exposes the inconvenient truth about food waste in developed countries. He exposes the irrationality of food consumption with a scene where he interviews a merchant at a seafood market who says: “The proportion of seafood is higher in the food that is thrown out from the market. Any seafood not sold during the day goes straight to the garbage. Why don’t wholesalers and retail sellers just hand out what they can’t sell? We used to pick out edible ones, but now we throw all of them away intentionally.” The video is a frank portrayal of how overproduction, hypocrisy in the distribution system, and the focus on freshness contribute to the massive garbage and the excess emission of greenhouse gas.

Part 4, Kitchen without Fridges

Part 4, Kitchen without Fridges, questions whether we can live without relying on fridges through works that deal with characteristics of food ingredients, food preservation technology, and research on stored food using methods of salting or fermentation. The exhibit does not argue that we should live without fridges but rather helps us to think about what goes into the fridge and suggests how we can live a healthier life. Save Food from the Fridge (photo05) by a designer duo Jiyeon & David captures attention.

05. Jiyeon&David, Save Food from the Fridge

Perhaps it was because of the fresh fruits and vegetables? The duo designed, created, and installed equipment that can store and preserve food using its unique characteristics without refrigeration. Water in a bowl at the bottom supplied water to the vegetables that require irrigation, while the rice was placed inside sauces to prevent it from hardening. Root vegetables such as green onions and carrots were stored upright in the sand, while potatoes were placed on top of apples to prevent sprucing leaves. It shows that all it takes is some commonsense knowledge to store and preserve food fresh without refrigeration. NoPlug People said that they created their work titled Ancient Future of Storages (photo06) to exemplify a lifestyle without electricity and in the hopes of restoring the wisdom and diversity of our ancestors who could store food for a long time without refrigerators.

06. Noplug People, Ancient Future of Storages

The work is notable for its research into ways to make our lives more efficient and richer instead of worrying about electrical efficiency. It may take 20 minutes to brew a cup of coffee, but it is possible to use solar energy to keep the temperature of the icebox at 10 degrees Celsius. Well-ventilated, functional storage boxes in the form of furniture take advantage of each vegetable’s characteristics, while a stylish drying rack to dry food under the sun suggests ways for us to reduce our energy consumption using primitive technologies. The last installation is created by a young artist collective from Gwangju, Jangdong Collective. Their work titled Gut (good) Place: For Every Jo Wangs (photo07) uses as its theme Jo wangs (kitchen gods) that oversee the kitchen. The wise kitchen of our mothers in an age without fridges is reinterpreted into a place of worship for the Jo wangs. The entire installation is in white, and many special utensils lie on the table for a religious ritual On the wall, paper objets are plastered all over to symbolize the sacred space, and there are recipes for each dish on the steles on either side. The viewers can take a copy of the recipes from the bottom of the steles, bringing and remembering a piece of ancestral wisdom in our own home and transforming this into something more than just an art exhibit.

07. Jangdong Collective, Gut (good) Place: For Every Jo wangs

Refrigerator Illusion featured works by 15 teams from Korea and abroad. This reflects the way organizers layered the multidimensional approaches, including videos, sculptures, and paintings on top of existing research and analyses. Divided into four parts, the exhibition reviews the history of ice before the invention of refrigeration technology, the rise of refrigerators, and subsequent changes in food production and shipping. It also imagines a world without refrigerators to suggest alternatives and examines the way human civilization has developed using the refrigerator as a medium. It even goes on to raise awareness of issues surrounding food preservation and waste. After the exhibition, every time we open our refrigerator, which is quite often, and with convenience, hopefully, we can also reflect upon the messages of the exhibition and think about the history of food before and after the fridge and subsequent changes in our culture.

• Written by Young-sook Jung. jysagnes@daum.net
  Photo. In-ho Hwang
  
  2021.08