Korean artists to present their take on antique maps

A unique interpretation of antique Korean maps will be presented by five South Korean artists during an exhibition at Nottingham Trent University. Mind Map, Mind the Gap, which runs from November 2 – 20, will feature artists’ individual responses to a collection of traditional Korean maps dating from the early 17th to the 19th centuries. 

The artists’ work – which includes painting, ceramics, digital prints, photography and sculpture – will be on show as part of the wider Korean Wave in Nottingham festival, which aims to bring Korean culture to the city through art, music and film events.

Held in conjunction with the Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCC) the festival is the brainchild of Nottingham Trent University Korean cultural studies lecturer Dr Seonghee Kim, who is one of the artists exhibiting at Mind Map, Mind the Gap.

Dr Kim, who gained her doctorate in fine art from the university’s School of Art and Design in 2007, uses traditional wood carving techniques to create sculptures which explore the structure of DNA and the DNA double helix. The sculptures are intended to represent permanence and past generations, along with the idea that our DNA is imprinted across these maps, which show the land where our ancestors lived, where we live, and where our descendants will live.

Richard Woodfield, Emeritus Professor in Nottingham Trent University’s School of Art and Design, said: “We are all familiar with maps, they are a routine part of our daily lives; we buy them from shops, consult them for journeys and use them to explore unfamiliar terrain.

"But the fact that they are familiar and taken for granted does not mean to say that they can not be fascinating or mysterious and these artists are reflecting the gap that separates the mundane world of reality from its experience in the mind.

“For the Western spectator, old Korean maps lack the kind of legibility available to Koreans; they will know the names of old and modern cities and have a sense of place that we can not share. In Mind Map, Mind the Gap, each artist’s activity becomes a work of map-making and it is up to the spectator to become a collaborative beholder to project meaning into the objects in the exhibition.

"Artists work with materials, just as an old map is a material object, a residue of its own physical past and a figuration waiting to be reconfigured by new perceivers.”

The artists are basing their work on ten reproductions of traditional Korean maps, which have been donated by the National Library of Korea. It is the first exhibition of such maps in the UK and aims to demonstrate the history and science behind Korea’s heritage as well as raise awareness in the UK to the country’s geographical position and topographical features.