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Revisiting the Korean Pavilion: CAC, Curator of the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2025

materials provided by
CAC
edited by
Kim Bokyoung

SPACE ​March 2025 (No. 688) 

 

Poster of ¡®Little Toad Little Toad: Unbuilding Pavilion¡¯ Poster design by Kim Yuna

 

In 2025, marking the 30th anniversary of the Korean Pavilion¡¯s construction in the Giardini, the professional architectural curation collective CAC (Curating Architecture Collective) was appointed as curator. When CAC entered the competition to select the curator for the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2025, they proposed the theme ¡®House of Trees¡¯, highlighting trees as a critical element in the history of Venice, the Giardini, and the Korean Pavilion itself to herald this landmark anniversary. That initial concept has since evolved into what is now titled ¡®Little Toad Little Toad: Unbuilding the Pavilion¡¯. We sat down with CAC to learn about their plans for the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2025, including their earliest ideas for the exhibition, how those ideas took shape over roughly a year of preparations, and how the final exhibition will ultimately be presented.

 

interview Chung Dahyoung, Kim Heejung, Jung Sungkyu co-directors, CAC ¡¿ Kim Bokyoung

 

​Kim Bokyoung: This year¡¯s exhibition at the Korean Pavilion of the Venice Biennale shines a spotlight on the untold stories of the Korean Pavilion¡¯s construction and design, re-evaluating a space that has often been underestimated as an exhibition venue. At the same time, by rediscovering the pavilion¡¯s sustainability credentials, it broadens the narrative from the Korean Pavilion to a universal story that could be applied not only to the Giardini – where the national pavilions are located – but to the Venice Biennale as a whole, and ultimately to the city of Venice. As an architectural curator, you likely had an abundance of ideas and angles you wanted to explore. What led you, at this particular moment, to conceive and plan this kind of exhibition?

Chung Dahyoung: All three of us share the same interests, and as architectural curators, our focus on a building¡¯s lifespan or its temporal dimension naturally shaped this exhibition. We often concentrate only on the moment a building is completed, then lose interest. While the fact that the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale is celebrating its 30th anniversary is significant, we also wanted to consider its entire lifespan, from the past through the ensuing three decades. Moreover, we believe a building¡¯s lifespan continues even after demolition. This exhibition grew out of our ongoing reflections following completion, the time before completion, and the time after a building disappears. ...

 
*You can see more information on the SPACE No. March (2025).
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Chung Dahyoung
Chung Dahyoung studied architecture and urban planning and worked as an editor at SPACE and as a curator at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Korea. She is currently the co-director of CAC and an adjunct professor of industrial design at Konkuk University. She is interested in expanding the discourse surrounding architecture and the city, design and objects, and practices this through exhibitions, publications, and writing. From 2011 to 2024, as an architectural curator of at the MMCA, Korea, she curated several exhibitions, including ¡®Figurative Journal: Chung Guyon Archive¡¯ (2013), ¡®Papers and Concrete: Modern Architecture in Korea 1987–1997¡¯ (2017) and ¡®Performative Home: Architecture for Alternative Living¡¯ (2024). She co-curated the ¡®Spectres of the State Avant-Garde¡¯, the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2018. In 2024, she was awarded the Kim, Jung-Chul Architecture Award.
Kim Heejung
Kim Heejung studied architecture in Seoul and London and is a co-director and curator at CAC. She is interested in the roles and activities of contemporary architects and the media and working methods that express architecture. She was coordinator of the ¡®Young Architects Program¡¯ at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (2015 – 2017), the associate curator of the ¡®Spectres of the State Avant-Garde¡¯, the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2018. She served as a curator at Photography Seoul Museum of Art (Photo SeMA) (2019 – 2024), where she planned various academic programmes related to building and opening process of the Photo SeMA. She is also the co-author of Pavilions, Filling the City with Emotion (HongCbook, 2015).
Jung Sungkyu
Jung Sungkyu majored in architecture and is engaged in exhibition planning and research in the field of visual arts and design. He is interested in architecture, craft and design, and horticulture, and is working on spatial planning around them. He has participated in the ¡®Homely Talk, Cho Byoungsoo ¡¿ Choi Wook¡¯ (2021) as collaborative curator, ¡®Olympic Effect: Korean Architecture and Design from 1980s to 1990s¡¯ (2020) as archival researcher, and was the assistant curator of the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2018, ¡®Spectres of the State Avant-Garde¡¯. He is currently co-director of CAC and co-principal of TACT.

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