WEBZINE ACC

In my opinion, one of the most beautiful spaces to be found in the massive National Asian Culture Center (ACC) is the Bamboo Garden, located at the heart of ACC Archive & Research. Despite its underground location, the garden is lit by sunlight brought into the space, allowing the bamboo to deliver a breath of freshness to the underground floor. It is a place for visitors to the ACC Archive & Research to take a walk or enjoy some conversation after reading a book or attending a lecture. However, ACC’s Bamboo Garden is currently hosting an exhibition called “Sketches Fall for ACC,” which showcases sketches and drawings that trace the changes in Gwangju’s Dong-gu District over time. Handdrawn by nearly 40 members of “Urban Sketchers Gwangju,” these sketches deliver their unique perspectives and stories with unmistakably human touches in their entirety. We met with Mr. Seo Dong-hwan, the representative of the group “Gwangju Urban Sketching & Drawing,” who was involved in this exhibition.

• Cheon Yunhui

  Great to meet you. Can you introduce us to what urban sketching and Urban Sketchers are?

• Seo Dong-hwan

  Urban sketching is, simply put, sketching the daily life in the city. “Urban Sketchers” is an international art movement started by the illustrator and reporter Gabriel Campanario in 2007, a movement where one sketches the stories in the cities and villages that one lives in or is living in. Today, it has hundreds of communities in cities around the world. In Gwangju, it has about one hundred members.
  The group “Gwangju Urban Sketching & Drawing” is now in its fourth year, having been founded by four people in February of 2020. “Urban Sketchers Gwangju” (manager Seo Chae-eun) and “Gwangju Urban Sketching & Drawing” (representative Seo Dong-hwan) are currently waiting to be certified as global chapters of Urban Sketchers. This exhibition features about 200 works of urban sketching and drawing created by 40 members of the two groups, with the assistance of the National Asian Culture Center in the form of education and workshop programs.

• Cheon Yunhui

  What is the essence of urban sketching? Is it about sketching something outside the studio?

• Seo Dong-hwan

  Rather than the location, I think it is more about the relationship you have with the object of your sketch and the happiness you feel while sketching. Perhaps somewhat like singing or writing, it is not about whether you can do something well or not. It is about the experiences and healing you attain in the process of drawing something you wanted to subconsciously draw. I think the story and the emotions that the place invokes in you are more important.
  Urban Sketchers has an eight-point Urban Sketchers Manifesto. One item is “We draw on location, indoors or out, capturing what we see from direct observation.” If Gwangju is to have a recognized global chapter of Urban Sketchers, we must abide by the Manifesto, but for approachability for the general public, I think it is important to allow the participants to draw things from photographs.

• Cheon Yunhui

  I heard that the reason why you started urban sketching was because of the show, “Our Beloved Summer.”

• Seo Dong-hwan

  I wasn’t actually in the group when it began. To my knowledge, the starting point of our group was our fellow member Song Seon-min (Instagram @gomajae), who had been living in Gochang and was suffering from a panic disorder at the time. Mr. Song came across urban sketching as he was trying to overcome his panic disorder, and he eventually met three others who formed the first group.
  I began urban sketching in June of 2022. I had been suffering from sleep disorders because of some external and internal factors. One day, I decided to start watching the show “Our Beloved Summer” for my college-aged son because he had been binge-watching the show late at night. The show is about a pair who produced a documentary in high school, a boy who was last in his grade and a girl who was the first. The boy sleeps in class, seemingly living without a thought, and the girl works hard. Ten years later, the boy works as an urban sketcher and illustrator who leads a carefree life. The girl works in a PR firm and comes to interview the boy. Scoring first in school neither guarantees you happiness, nor scoring last guarantees you an unhappy life. What is important is what happiness you can find in your life, what happiness you can find in the process of sketching. Yes, that show was the first step in my journey to urban sketching.

• Cheon Yunhui

  How do people come to urban sketches?

• Seo Dong-hwan

  We have members from all age groups, from those in their 30s to those in their 80s. A senior member who recently joined the group was thought to have promise in art back in the day, and that member wanted to do something that one was not able to do over 80 years of one’s life. Artists who had studied art in college but had their careers interrupted because of marriage and child care took up urban sketching as a way to pick up their work. One recent member who worked in the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Bureau of Health Policy does urban sketching as a way to overcome sheer fatigue and stress during the COVID pandemic. Mr. Kim Jung-up is now entering the third phase of his life after retirement. He says that he finds joy in improving his skills every day, gradually, in an entirely new field.

• Cheon Yunhui

  How did you come to plan this exhibition, “Sketches Fall for ACC?”

• Seo Dong-hwan

  The exhibition “Sketches Fall for ACC” wasn’t planned. As we worked on sketching in Gwangju’s Dong-gu District, someone suggested that we should sketch the National Asian Culture Center in February’s regular meeting. Since February is rather chilly, we asked the ACC whether we could do our sketching indoors if the weather is bad, the things we should keep in mind, and the like. Once we got their permission, Ms. Seol Bo-yeong from the ACC attended our sketching session and approached us with a proposal to put our work up for exhibition. So, with the ACC’s support, we held our regular meetings and sketching sessions in different spots around the ACC in February, followed by two urban sketching workshops in March and April in conjunction with the ACC Press Corps and the ACC Supporters. We also created coloring postcards and merch with our members’ works.
  I also submitted a pen sketch of the National Asian Culture Center to the exhibition. It took me two months to complete. I used the bird’s-eye perspective for my work, the same one that Gyeomjae Jeong Seon had employed in his landscape works of Geumgangsan Mountain.

• Cheon Yunhui

  Do you have anything you particularly emphasize in urban sketching?

• Seo Dong-hwan

  I actually look to Gyeomjae Jeong Seon’s works during the Joseon period as an early example of what we call urban sketches today. After all, his most famous work, “Geumgang jeondo” (Complete View of Geumgangsan Mountain), is a collection of landscape paintings of that period. Danwon Kim Hong-do’s folk paintings are likewise something that we would call urban sketches today. What I personally emphasize in my urban sketches are the people in the urban and rural settings, the places that capture their own stories, and the trees as forms of life. How wonderful is it to think that our 21st Century sketches will be seen as folk paintings and archives of urban records in the future?

• Cheon Yunhui

  I’ve heard that there is something special about urban sketches done in May.

• Seo Dong-hwan

  We sketch our daily lives and the things we see on foot in our cities. One of the sketching sessions we did that I particularly find memorable is the urban sketch we did last May. Rather than focusing on our daily lives, we decided to first try sketching the stories of Gwangju’s May. This year, we invited other urban sketchers from Incheon, Seoul, and Gyeonggi-do Province to come and join the “Story of May Buried in the Heart” tour program and sketch the stories with us. It was such a different experience to listen to the stories of May in the historic sites. One of our members, Mr. Kim Jung-up, was actually a member of the citizen’s militia at that time. Mr. Kim said that for him to walk the path that he had taken with a gun in his hand 42 years ago, to think back to that struggle, and to turn that pain into a sketch was quite a moving experience. The experience of walking, listening to the stories, and sketching that May was something far beyond the history we were taught in class.

• Cheon Yunhui

  Last question, how can those interested in urban sketching take part in it? Does one have to draw well to join?

• Seo Dong-hwan

  If you can write your name, you should have no issue. One thing about urban sketching is that it does not discriminate between materials. Whether you use colored pencils, oil on canvas, watercolor, or Korean ink, it does not matter, but the trend these days is using pen drawing with watercolor. Some members who use pens and markers or monochrome color schemes only. You just have to find what feels good to you.
  To take part in our group, look up “Gwangju Urban Sketching & Drawing” (광주어반스케치&드로잉) in KakaoTalk’s Open Chat function. Since last winter, the program joined the cultural program lineup at Gwangju Museum of Art, so you can meet us there as well.

When visitors from out of town ask me to recommend places to visit in Gwangju, I often recommend the National Asian Cultural Center. Even if you don’t know much about Gwangju’s history, the unique beauty of the architecture and landscaping of the former Jeonnam Provincial Office makes the space fascinating to look at, and there are great exhibits and programs, a library, and a children’s cultural center that you can visit at any time. The National Asian Cultural Center also offers space tours, public art tours, and docent tours.

With the “Sketches Fall for ACC,” I could see how this massive cultural space was being reinterpreted and recorded by the visitors as personal spaces with familiar memories. I hope that the space will continue becoming a cultural playground where one can drop by anytime, sketch, attend exhibitions and performances, listen to lectures, and maybe get a cup of coffee. I hope that when one opens a photo album or a sketch album to find the National Asian Culture Center, one will find it tinged with happy memories.