The 14th Gwangju Biennale opens its doors this Friday, April 7, under the theme "Gentle and Weak as Water".
Over 300 works by 79 contemporary artists will be on show for 94 days until July 9 in the city some 330 km south of Seoul.
The artistic director of the 14th edition of this event, Lee Sook-kyung, senior curator for international art at Tate Modern in London, explained that the theme of the event comes from the Book of the Way and Virtue (Dao De Jing): "There is nothing softer and weaker than water, and yet there is nothing better for tackling hard and strong things (78th verse)."
"We took as our metaphor and methodology water, which gently seeps in to disintegrate the rock and ultimately bring about change, and which is powerful though it looks weak, with the aim of promoting resistance, coexistence and solidarity and sending a message of hope about the challenges we face, such as post-colonialism and the environment," Lee said at a press conference held ahead of the event's opening.
It was against this backdrop that artist Romain Lalire created the work entitled"Fragment 49.021429 N 2.267299 E", created from 3D scans of the Montmorency forest, affected by ink disease. This video, the fruit of his "Fragments" project, initiated as part of the Western XR residency in Vancouver, will be projected on the facade of the Gwangju Media Arts Platform (G.MAP) for 3 months.
To scan the Montmorency woods, Romain Lalire used a remote sensing technology called LIDAR, which uses lasers to measure distances. Increasingly used in contemporary art to represent objects, landscapes and even buildings, it is particularly suited to projects requiring high precision and three-dimensional representation.
One of the advantages of LIDAR is that it can capture complex details and nuances of light that are difficult to achieve with other scanning technologies.
This unique work celebrates the intersection of technology and creativity to raise public awareness of current environmental issues, and we're proud that Romain Lalire is able to bring this project to such a large audience.
