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Walking is one of the oldest human activities. Since humans started to walk upright, walking has been a daily human activity and it doesn’t seem to be replaceable even when the future of AI replacing most of our activities and jobs is near. Walking upright with two legs left hands free, allowing humans to use hands for utilizing tools. This enhanced the capacity of human brain, which resulted in the ability to think. Walking in the past was a necessary movement required to do something, but walking after the modern era became more about “strolling,” a leisurely walk, and also became a way of thinking.

Walking in the city, walking through the history of art

The idea of walking in the city space originated in the early 19th century. The change of urban landscape due to the dramatical growth of cities after the Industrial Revolution changed the urban life of the residents of those cities. Especially, Haussmann's renovation of Paris from 1853 to 1870 dramatically changed the landscape of the city, leading to the emergence of people who strolled and observed the changed city's landscape.

French writer Charles Baudelaire called the people who leisurely walk around the city as “flâneur,” which means a stroller, in “Le Figaro,” 1963. The term flâneur stems from French verb “flâner,” which means to walk slowly without a purpose or destination. Philosophers, writers, and artists in the early 19th century became a stroller and experimented the connection between thinking and walking around cities. Flâneur thus was a person whose life represented the urban life in the modern era, showing the potential of walking to be an artistic activity rather than merely a routine activity.

19th-century artists depicted the rapidly renovated landscape of Paris and people who stroll around it, since the economic and cultural prosperity of that time filled the city with things to watch and enjoy. It's not hard to see gentlemen wearing nice suits with black fedoras walking around Paris in Impressionists paintings.

Gustave Caillebotte, <Paris Street; Rainy Day>, 1877.

The meaning of strolling cities evolved from the contemplative perception of the urban landscape to the critical observation of the hidden sides in cities. Walter Benjamin, a German philosopher and a literary critic, wrote an essay, “Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century” (1938), which conceptualized flâneur as a critical observant of a city to contemplate on capitalism. Benjamin’s view infused many artists with inspirations.

Among performance artists in the 20th century, it was common to make bodily performances into a new type of artistic expression. The artists experimented turning the activity of walking into an art form. Marina Abramović, one of the pioneers of performance art, walked on the Great Wall of China with her 12-year romantic and work partner Ulay as an artistic performance to show the ending of their partnership in <The Lovers, The Great Wall Walk>.

Abramović, Marina, <The Lovers, The Great Wall Walk>, 1988/2010, two-channel video (color, silent), 15:45 min.
A record of the performance in 1988 (90 days, The Great Wall of China, China), courtesy of Marina Abramović Archive and LIMA.

The couple stood at the different ends of the wall and walked toward each other for 90 days to meet in the middle. They shared a hug, said goodbyes, and walked back to where they came from. In every hello, there is a goodbye. Their walk on the Great Wall demonstrates our journey of life where we were born alone, meet someone, and then become alone again. Walking is therefore a journey of a human life where we constantly walk toward somewhere between the beginning and the end of life.

However, the couple had to negotiate with the government of China for eight years to get permission to do the performance. Their original plan to mark their wedding with the performance was modified into the marking of their goodbye during those eight years. Their walk was an act of resistance to overcome the governmental control and their personal psychological pain.

Walking has been the means of expression by many other artists while its meaning continues to evolve. Walking as a practice has developed into diverse variations by the context of a city and an artist’s perception on a city.

The meaning of “running in the city” in contemporary art:
Gemini Kim’s <Invisible Factory Run Project- Rayon Plant Run>

Then, what does it mean to walk in a city in contemporary art? Let’s take a look at Gemini Kim’s <Invisible Factory Run Project- Rayon Plant Run> as an example. Gemini Kim’s run tracks the journey of a rayon plant. To be more exact, Kim followed the journey of rayon manufacturing machines by moving from Shiga, Japan (1927-1963) to Namyangju, Korea (1963-1993) to Dandong, Liaoning, China (1993-2009) and ran around the places where a rayon plant used to be. After that, repeating his journey in reverse, from Dandong in China to Namyangju-si in Korea then to Shiga, Japan.

Why does he run, then? And how running is different from walking? Running is walking with more speed and a tightly connected series of walking, granting consistency and connectivity to each act. Kim’s run is thus an act of connecting one side with the other, which connects and forms consistency between the past and the present, between each location, bringing hidden urban problems into the surface. Running which reflects the attitude of the runner corresponds to the implication of the place the runner runs.

Gemini Kim, <Invisible Factory Run Project- Rayon Plant Run>, 2023.
Archive, single-channel video, color, sound, variable size. Production supported by the ACC. Courtesy of the artist.

Now, let’s pay attention to the places the artist ran. A rayon plant relocated from Japan to Korea, from Korea to China reveals the other side of urban expansion and capitalism. The rayon machines first came to Korea from Japan in 1964, as a means of reparations for a tragic part of Korean modern history, and the first rayon plant was established in Korea.

Rayon is another term for artificial silk and made by chemical process of turning melted carbon disulfide into silk, causing neurotoxic gas, carbon disulfide. The rayon plant was not equipped with any facility to safely deal with the toxic substance, which led to many workers being addicted to the gas. Although many rayon workers became disabled, sometimes died of the addiction, and suffered from other aftereffects, there was no measure to address the damage. Instead, the rayon machines were simply transferred to China after that. To which and in what order the machines were transferred tells how capitalism works. The machines are now in India and North Korea, continuing their endless journey.

<Invisible Factory Run Project- Rayon Plant Run> (2023) by Gemini Kim

Left: Gemini Kim, Rayon clothes and objects used for <Invisible Factory Run Project - Rayon Plant Run>. Exhibition <Walking, Wandering>, 2023. Provided by the ACC.

Right: Gemini Kim, Research materials for <Invisible Factory Run Project - Rayon Plant Run>. Exhibition <Walking, Wandering>, 2023. Provided by the ACC.

The places where the plant used to be located turned into an empty space, an apartment zone, or a place for new different factories, where he found the signs that said “green town” or “green fashion” during his run. Rayon fiber is now commodified as an eco-friendly fiber in the city while the place where it used to be produced displays itself as harmless to the environment as if nothing bad happened.

The artist brings the changing city itself to the awareness by running around the apartments at the place the rayon plant had been. His rayon plant run raises awareness of the lost life of workers, rapid urbanization, and capitalist society. The artist brings the collective memory of the past to our time and renders it as a part of the present by being a city stroller. His body itself is a vehicle to connect the past and the present, one location and the other. His running wearing rayon clothing may look like an ordinary jogging person anyone can easily see in a modern city, but that may be how a person who mindlessly absorbs the sweetness of a city's apperance.

Gemini Kim, <Invisible Factory Run Project - Rayon Plant Run>. <Walking, Wandering>, 2023. Provided by the ACC.