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2021 ACC Asia Culture Market Goods Day
Marks its fourth anniversary this year!

If you looked around the flea market
riding a go-kart last year,
this year is Clip Clip Club!
Enjoy cultural products with the salon culture!

In my childhood years, a stationery store was some kind of an outlet. It’s somewhere we are attracted to with the ‘stream of consciousness’ as if we’re attracted to a magnetic field. We used to take such a long time buying a pen that we didn’t need honestly, as if that pen was the most important thing in our lives. It was a place that we laughed while eating snacks (also known as junk food) that we bought even when we weren’t hungry. It was a mysterious space that all of our worries about a bad report card, teacher’s scolding, fight with friends suddenly went away. It was also a place that made who we are more unique than others with the products we chose by ourselves. The reason many girls fall into a habit of buying stationery products may be similar to the reason adults do ‘revenge spending’ for their stressful lives. For three days, from September 10th, 2021, to September 12th, 2021, ACC opened a prop shop or a stationery store for adults who reminisced about their childhood. The 2021 ACC Asia Culture Market Goods Day was the stationery store for adults, which filled up 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floor of the ACC Makerspace.

The ACC Culture Market was held in the ACC Asia Square last year. This year, it was located at the indoor space of ACC Makerspace, from B1 to the 3rd floor. If you turn towards the sixth entrance from the sky garden, you’ll see a bridge, and the stairs connected to the bridge are a way to ‘Clip Clip Club’. Going down the stairs, you’ll see the culture market. What kind of mysterious things would be happening at the end of these stairs? My heart is pounding like Alice, when she entered the cave and saw wonderland for the first time.

Arriving at the entrance, people who have yet to enter the market are gathered around at the terrace. “Are they waiting in line because they couldn’t get in?” I was worried that I might not be able to get in because I failed to make an early reservation. It was relieving to hear that I could enter with no problem if I didn’t have any symptoms related to COVID-19. After going through hand sanitization, temperature check, and QR check-in process, I finally entered the Clip Clip Club. I was glad to see such a bright indoor space. It was full of a vibrant atmosphere unique to markets. I heard that this year’s event was divided into two parts, the cultural product influencer market with thirty illustration artists from the nation, and creator Flea Market with fifty teams of business owners from the Gwangju and Jeonnam regions. What kinds of cultural products, cute and charming goods will be waiting for me?

A rare opportunity to meet
the influencer character goods in person!
Introducing the cultural products that are fun and meaningful
specially chosen by the ACC Culture Market!

The market was divided into two sections: Influencer Market, where illustrations from influencers working in various fields and cultural goods are displayed, and Creator Flea Market, where fifty participants are selected after a keen competition. But when I entered the market, those classifications didn’t really have a big meaning, and the market was full of free and exciting spirit. The characters invented by the creators were created into stickers, mobile phone grip tok, memo notes, masking tapes, postcards, and other cultural products and were waiting the visitors’ attention and affection. Unlike the 1st floor, there were small snacks like cookies and jams along with shoes, bags, clothes, cutting boards, hairpins, and other living goods on the third basement floor.

There were goods ranging from Dandelion Heart created with the pictures drawn by children who are suffering from rare, incurable diseases, Rice Paste goods that anyone from Korea will automatically approve, the Ddaengul Bbangul goods boasting the charms of bread against Rice, and Dalpaeng Ajosssi goods with a little bird named Ajossi showing off its cuteness! The cultural products with not only cuteness and charms but also social meanings filled the ACC Makerspace from B1 to the 3rd floor. Although the goods are the pure creations of the creators with their inspiration and sincerity, you don’t have to worry about copyrights at the ACC Culture Market! It will only make the visitors more enthusiastic when they hear about free stickers they could get when they upload a post on their social channels!

Cuteness overload goods!
A smile to our tiring daily lives

‘Flex’ your luck and joy!
ACC Culture Market Cultural Products

On one side, the promotion for the ACC Plastic Play Workshop, which will start from October 8th, was at its peak. When visitors bring three bottle caps, they can create plastic upcycling products (tube squeezer, karabiner), and if they bring more than 30 bottle caps, the workshop will provide a gift set on a first-come-first-serve basis. Looking around the cultural products that make our eyes happy, my eagerness for creation was starting to bloom! It was a promotion that started a fire inside me, thinking, ‘should I make one too?’

The ACC Culture Market was like a picnic that brought us back to our childhood, and there was one more event that added more fun to it. It was a lucky draw! The coins the visitors get from buying the cultural goods can be converted into five stickers. Would the coin bring ‘luck’ to people? I look around at the coins. Although I couldn’t get the goods set of cultural products or the coupon for cafés at Dongmyeong-dong, there was no time to be disappointed. Just like how everyone receives a prize at a scavenger hunt at picnics, everyone received a prize at the ACC Culture Market Lucky Box! I was able to wrap up the ACC Culture Market tour happily as I won a pen to celebrate the culture market at the end.

People who are choosing the right product for themselves while going up and down the stairs… They looked like children on their scavenger hunt at a picnic. Would these goods help you eat or help you get a job? I don’t think so. But just at this moment, if we could bring back our memories of childhood or even the memories from today when we had so much fun, how thankful would we see these products? Just like culture and art would be to everyone.

• Written by Min-im Choi. samagg@hanmail.net
  Photo. In-ho Hwang. photoneverdie@naver.com
  
  2021.10