Busan and Gwangju biennials take a deep dive into resistance and change

South Korea’s Busan Biennale and Gwangju Biennale are running around Seoul art week with themes focused on resistance and transformation. The Busan Biennale, titled “Dissident Chorus,” is open until 1 November and is co-directed by Evelyn Simons and Amal Khalaf; it features 46 artists and collectives examining protest cultures, including projects referencing Korean labor history and protest songs, and includes rarely shown drawings, watercolours, and maps by the late writer Ursula K. Le Guin from her family’s collection via a project with the collective 5D and the Le Guin estate. The Gwangju Biennale runs 5 September to 15 November under the title “You Must Change Your Life,” drawn from Rainer Maria Rilke’s 1908 poem “Archaic Torso of Apollo.” Artistic director Ho Tzu Nyen, working with curators Che Kyongfa, Park Gahee, and Brian Kuan Wood, frames the exhibition as an inquiry into different scales of change and when to participate in, resist, or refuse transformation.

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