WEBZINE ACC

Asia Culture Center (ACC) is like a place inside surrealist artwork where I can experience something new to happen in daily life. <The Great Chronicle with Earth> x Yoga Workshop was such an experience. ACC is the place I often visit, but this time I experienced its other side.

<The Great Chronicle with Earth> x Yoga Workshop was a program that explored how to coexist with Earth by approaching its changes through media art and body gestures, and it was held in a novel way by integrating a convergence exhibition about earth, environment, and nature ecology with yoga.

The program was divided into two parts: the time to understand the changes of the Earth and the special time for me and Earth. First, through the exhibitions <Aqua Paradiso> and <The Great Chronicle with Earth> at ACC, the changes of Earth and the environment were covered, and then inside the exhibition space where the grandiose Earth is expressed as media art with various lights and forms, some time to focus on me and the Earth through yoga were provided.

# Epic of water in humanity

The exhibition starts from <Aqua Paradiso> about water with a docent at Space 3 and Space 4. <Aqua Paradiso> is a convergence exhibition that seeks for an alternative relationship between hydro-ecology and human. It is a known fact that water is indispensable substance to maintain our life as it takes up 70 percent of our body. Moreover, almost every part of daily life such as washing, eating, drinking, and cleaning needs water from the moment we wake up until we go back to our bed. Of course, this truth is not only relevant to human but also to every creature on Earth.

<Aqua Paradiso> is about ‘water.’ With 11 local and international contemporary artists, various epics of water are introduced such as water in history, water that circulates and cures the ecosystem, and water as the absolute that balances the ecosystem to remind the audience of the potentials and the sublime of nature.

Docent tour scenes from the citizen participation program, ACC <The Great Chronicle with Earth> x Yoga Workshop

Entering the entrance of the exhibition hall, Ligyung's <My Jubilee Ist Unverhemmet> (2018), which reinterprets Cheonjiyeon Waterfall with light and sound, welcomes the audience. If you enter the space surrounded by videos of water falling and mirrors, you will have dreamy feeling as if you are in the world of water, and you are purified by water as you are overwhelmed by the work.

After the waterfall, you can meet the photography series of Yee I-Lann called <Sulu Stories> about the continuing territorial conflict in Sulu Sea. Born in Sabah, Malaysia close to Sulu Sea, the artist tried to capture the historical events of Sulu Sea through photographs to record the place.

As you move inside the exhibition hall, Indonesian artist Maryanto's panorama work <Tirta Perwitasari> (2022) catches the eyes. <Tirta Perwitasari> is a large panorama drawing that fills out the entire side of a wall of the exhibition hall, and the artist drew it by using charcoal on the wall of the exhibition hall for 14 days. The image of the combination of water vapor rising from the active volcano, wooded forests, and sacred springs shows the scenery of Java Island, a place where water was traditionally worshipped, through the artist's perspectives.

<Acqua Alta – Crossing the mirror> by the French artists Adrien M & Claire B is a work about the great flood in Venice that utilizes augmented reality (AR). If you took the tablet close to the picture on the table, the stories of lovers amid the great flood of Venice would be shown as pop-up format, reminding the audience of the severity of climate crisis.

Docent tour scenes from the citizen participation program, ACC <The Great Chronicle with Earth> x Yoga Workshop

There was also a work about the role of art to deal with the climate crisis. Artist Boo Jihyun’s <Where is it going> (2022) is an installation that utilizes the discarded attractor lights to visualize the trajectory of the water and its right usage. Based in Jeju, artist eco orot’s <Jeju Coral Crochet> (2018-2022) is a work in campaign format created to raise awareness of the rapid changes in the marine ecosystem, inviting the audience to share their concerns about the changing marine ecosystem. The audience participates in coral crocheting, and all the outcomes are installed to a part of the work.

# Us inside the great chronicle with Earth

After <Aqua Paradiso>, you move to Space 2 followed by docent’s instructions. Now, the epics of water and humanity starting from “water” are expanded to <The Great Chronicle with Earth> that captures the audience with the greater stories.

<The Great Chronicle with Earth> is an exhibition of convergence content with the theme “the chronicles of the Earth," introducing the appearance of the Earth and phenomena brought by climate change using advanced digital media technology such as anamorphic videos and soundscapes. As we face the "Anthropocene," it throws the questions about the community's direction to live on Earth through various immersive experiences and enables to take a view on the path of mankind through an intense digital experience that depicts the past, present, and future of the Earth.

At Space 2, the newly created large-sized media gate <Imaginary Portal> at the entrance of ACC Creation welcomes the participants. Standing front of the "gate of light" that took the motif from a cave, the viewers will encounter the immense time of Earth like a panorama that shows the path humans have gone through from past to present, including Altamira Cave, ancient Egypt, the Industrial Revolution, and Nam June Paik's media art.

After passing through this "gate of light," the viewers can enter the ACC Creation. Along with a unique experience that creates an illusion as if passing through a different dimension of time, the viewers will then move inside the exhibition hall where the time of Earth is condensed.

As the audience enter the exhibition hall, exclamations burst out here and there. The immense time of Earth accumulated inside the hall is clearly seen. The first work to greet the audience is a media work called <Circulation of Water>. The large LED chandelier on the ceiling and the huge circular video in the center of ACC Creation show the circulation of water and symbolically embody the restorative power that the Earth had it for eons.

Scenes from the citizen participation program, ACC <The Great Chronicle with Earth> x Yoga Workshop

The circulating light of the media chandelier symbolizes the change of mankind and Earth, and the huge circular floor symbolizes the change of Earth and the time of circulation. The viewers will experience the media art and interaction as another form of circulation through the chandelier that turns into the waterfall video and the wave of water on the circular floor.

On the second floor of the exhibition hall, the viewers will see an audiovisual art <Largo>, which holds the memories of primitive Earth composed of liquid and gas, <Sound Wave> that metaphorically visualizes the sounds of viewers as graphics, <New Planetary System> that visualizes the time of Earth from space, and <One Day> that presents the “memories of the Earth” by 24 hours with its changes and cycles with a 360-degree screen and an immersive sound system, and all these new media works of advanced immersive technology that have been hardly seen in our regions allow us to imagine the future time of Earth.

Outside of the ACC Creation, the contents <A Story from the Future> and <Seed of Life> based on the work <BBRUN> developed by the ACC catch everyone's attention. BB and BBRUN, created with the motif of imaginary animals from the Goseong ogwangdae, explore the desolate Earth in the future destroyed by environmental pollution. In particular, the viewers can participate in the healing and restoration process of BBRUN by the "Seed of Life" on the desolate Earth. It is an interactive performance in which when the viewers approach the crying BBRUN, colorful flowers begin to bloom on the floor and walls, and the desolate Earth regains nature again and BBRUN is also healed. Why don't we go to see the exhibition <The Great Chronicle with Earth> and give BBRUN a smile again?

# The time of me and Earth

After the exhibition with docent's explanations, the second part, yoga workshop, will be held inside the ACC Creation at Space 2. It is impressive to see ACC's new attempt to show flexibility to change in any form, away from the conventional twist that the exhibition hall should be solemn. When I enter the ACC Creation again after preparing for the yoga workshop, I cannot resist my excitement and nervousness about yoga with the magnificent time of Earth.

Before it started, I slowly looked around the space and the work as soon as I sat down on my yoga mat. It felt as if I was inside of the work with all those beautiful images on the colorful floor reflected between every mat in the center of tranquil exhibition hall. What a thrilling experience in doing yoga at the exhibition space.

ACC <The Great Chronicle with Earth> x Yoga Workshop Lecture

The yoga workshop was held by Harry, a yoga instructor who takes the lead in environmental protection with yoga that protects the Earth. The yoga movement slowly begins with the background of an immersive video depicting the past, present, and future of the Earth. The participants breathe at a slow and small tempo and concentrate to follow the instructor’s movements from light stretching to high level movements. He helped to move by pointing out each person's posture suitable to each body, so I could perform the movement without difficulty. As the pleasant sweat flowed enough to wet my forehead, it felt like the exhausted mind also disappeared as my body relaxed.

Scenes from the citizen participation program, ACC <The Great Chronicle with Earth> x Yoga Workshop

Including me, most of modern people often experience the uncomfortable body with tension because of the mental fatigue like stress. Our body sends out the signals about what is happening inside. Body talks when engulfed by anxiety or stressed out. Therefore, we need to carefully listen to the signals our body sends and try to not lose “myself” by focusing on what is happening inside. ACC’s yoga workshop was the time of meditation to take care of “real me” by focusing on my body.

Earth is like our body. As humans express their inner states through various body signals, this is similar with the Earth. The signals like the rise in sea levels, frequent natural disasters, and the changing weather are clearly mirroring the anxiety toward the future time of Earth. Hence, we need to be concerned about the changes and signals around us due to the climate change for this endless <The Great Chronicle with Earth>. Just like how I meditated for myself at this yoga workshop.

The event coordinator said that the event was planned to target the young MZ generation in their 20s and 30s, imagining the exhibition contents of “the time of Earth" and the image of doing yoga on a paddle board on the blue sea of Jeju Island. Above all, the coordinator wanted to provide differentiated opportunities for the viewers to understand ACC's own content in depth.

The yoga workshop and the exhibition with the theme of environment, humanity, and Earth definitely was the time of love for the Earth and me. Through the process of throwing questions and learning about the Earth and humanity with the artworks and the process of slowly examining and knowing my body with yoga's quiet movements, <The Great Chronicle with Earth> x Yoga Workshop was fully filled with time to love me and the Earth. It will be remembered as a grateful time that opens the way for us to think about things taken for granted and things that seem to last forever, and to find the endless questions and answers about humanity and our efforts for the sustainable place to live.