SPACE December 2024 (No. 685)
Exhibition view of ‘Seoul Mini Mountains’ ©Jeong Jihyeon
The Seoul Museum of History is organising ‘Seoul Mini Mountains: Reading the City from its Voids’ in collaboration with the Department of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong. The exhibition’s general researcher, Géraldine Borio (professor, The University of Hong Kong), has been conducting architectural and urban research on Asia for over 17 years and runs Borio Lab, an independent research centre that documents her artistic practice. This exhibition is based on ‘Seoul Mini Mountains’, one of the results of Borio Lab’s research projects. The exhibition sheds new light on the city of Seoul by focusing on the small mountainous areas, in other words ‘voids’, that remain in the centre of Seoul. Photographs, mapping data, and drawings fill the walls, revealing Seoul’s unique topography. The research examines the shapes and roles of voids scattered throughout the urban fabric, and explores their impact on urban narratives and identity. Interestingly, it reinterprets Seoul through the eyes of a foreigner, rather than seeing the city as simply a collection of buildings, and emphasises the value of the void. The research refers to 24 mountainous areas in Seoul as ‘mini mountains’, and by following the data, one can observe how each of them has been shaped and changed over the course of Seoul’s history, and what activities take place within them. These small, undeveloped areas are scattered like constellations and attract little attention, but the exhibition interprets voids as a mechanism that allows the city to breathe while resisting the tide of urbanisation. The exhibition runs until Feb. 9, 2025 and it can be viewed free of charge at the Lobby Exhibition Hall of the Seoul Museum of History.
