The exhibition 《Sensory Garden: Night Falls, Light Fulls》 was designed to provide visitors with an opportunity to appreciate a peaceful walk despite the overwhelming challenges we have all faced with the COVID-19 pandemic which has taken over the world. We hope that our visitors will be able to open all their senses to fully experience the feast created by poetry, music, scents, art, and light at night through the brilliant artworks set up along the trail of the Asia Culture Center (ACC).

ACC invited eight contemporary artists and requested their artworks to be installed along its four-thousand-square-meter trail. The artists were informed of the keyword of this exhibition, “flow (or flux),” and were asked to build “site-specific” artworks that can form a sense of harmony with the trail. As a result, the trail now includes the fire lane stretching down over a hundred meters, the cooling tower standing next to the lane to mimic a signpost visible from all directions, a crape myrtle forest surrounding the area, small and large stage-like gardens positioned between structures , a spacious sloped lawn called “Hanul Madang (the sky garden),” a giant roof on top of it called the “Grand Canopy,” various types of stairs and narrow paths connecting those spaces, and the contemporary artworks that have established their own nests in keeping with the flow of the trails. All of these are featured in the exhibition venue entitled the “Sensory Garden.”

The keyword of this exhibition, “flow (or flux),” was inspired by the famous words of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “You cannot step into the same river twice.” The significance of “change” and “creation” implied in those words, given their widths and depths, are magnificent enough to engulf the entire universe. The concept of “change,” which conveys uncertainty, is inextricably linked with the concept of “creation” constructed from memories and consciousness. This mirrors how yin and yang, light and darkness, and chaos and order all coexist in the universe.

These concepts are deeply embedded in the works of the artists participating in this exhibition. Sera Yong, who is noted for her dynamic and delicate design, collaborates with the Poet Sang-wook Ha, who is renowned for his poems that resonate thoroughly with the general public. The artist uses media art to maximize the keen empathy evoked by Sang-wook Ha’s poetry. Meanwhile, Sung Rok Choi and Changhwan Moon guide the visitors to walk in virtual spaces by projecting 3D images on the walls and floor. Sung Rok Choi invents mythical stories about the origin of the universe, while Changhwan Moon borrows the concept of a metaverse to present his projection mapping work.

Hyewon Kwon interprets ACC’s landscape with the concept of “a borrowed landscape” which means incorporating certain sceneries into the existing terrain. The artist captures the ecological environment that stretches along the flow of water from Mudeungsan Mountain, where the Gwangjucheon Stream originates from, to the Yeongsangang River, and projects the image into the Sensory Garden. Meekyoung Shin, inspired by Marcel Proust’s novel “À la Recherche du Temps Perdu (Remembrance of Things Past / In Search of Lost Time),” integrates olfactory elements into the Sensory Garden by taking advantage of the association between scent and memory. The jasmine-scented soap sculpture embodies the finite nature of materials that have become weathered in the wind and rain to remind the visitors how everything conforms to nature. Dohahm Oh, extends the power of empathy inherent in music to both the disabled and non-disabled audiences through a tactile and auditory delivery of his art, and thereby makes his works available for a hands-on experience in which the visitors can themselves engage in a DJ performance. Ligyung expresses the concepts of change and creation through media art by visualizing the cycle of the moon's waxes and wanes, while Ko, Ki Young builds an emerald-colored forest that metaphorically captures the vitality of all creation to invoke harmony in the Sensory Garden as a whole.

We hope that the visitors, who must be frustrated and exhausted from being trapped in their homes for a prolonged period, will visit the Sensory Garden to delight in the small pleasure of taking leisurely strolls and celebrate the thrills and excitement of an ordinary day.