City of Brotherly Love
Seoul Design Olympiad 10.10 - 30.10 2008
Collaboration with Jan Christensen
Conceptual Text
Last year Seoul was designated to be World Design Capital in 2010 in stiff competition with other cities around the world. As a run-up to this Seoul is hosting a 21-day Design Olympiad (SDO) from 10 to 30 October in Jamsil Olympic Stadium. Under the theme "Design is AIR" the SDO includes exhibitions, design competitions and performances, with top fashion and graphic designers participating.
"Mobile Cube" is an urban gallery project curated by the renowned architect Lee Jaejun, who has invited 10 artist groups to make use of 10 containers dispersed throughout the city for their art projects. On Friday 10 October all the containers will be moved to the entrance of the Jamsil Stadium where the public can freely explore the works that have been created over the previous two weeks.
The theme of Jan Christensen and Bjørn Kowalski-Hansen's project is "City of Brotherly Love" and aims at deconstructing how design and aestethic values are created and perceived in contemporary Korean society. For the past two weeks they have produced T-shirts with various messages and designs that reflect their perception of urban Seoulites. Through humour and dialogue they try to make people reflect on their automatic assumptions of what is beautiful or good design.
In keeping with the theme of the art project - brotherly love, the
proceeds from the sale of the T-shirts has been given in its entirety to a local charity organisation who work with orphans and North Korean refugees. The transfer of the money was recorded by the cable TV-station TBS and will be screened on 15 October at 10 am. After the screening the programme will be available here: