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Curator’s introduction:

INTRODUCTION

Liverpool was once one of Europe's most afAuent cities with a bustling port (the Titanic famously embarked on its ill-fated

journey from Liverpool). Although Liverpool suffered an economic decline during the 1980s, it has been revamping itself

as a city rich with culture (European Capital of Culture 2008) and creative energy. Liverpool Biennial 2012 was met with

great excitement as the 7th "Biennial of the UK" being a host to an even greater international audience than ever before

thanks to the London Olympics. Appropriately, the 2012 Biennial announced its theme: "Hospitality". <TERRA GALAXIA>

As part of the City States project of the Liverpool Biennial, <Terra Galaxia> has taken its inspiration from the theme "Hospitality" and the city of lncheon, one of the largest trading hubs in Asia with a great similarity to Liverpool. lncheon is

home to South Korea's main airport and historic port city, the same gateway through which the country was forced to open to international trade in 1867 by the Treaty of Kanghwa. Weathering wars and tumultuous times, lncheon has now established itself as the modern doorway to North Asia with its state-of-the-art international airport (only perhaps lacking an imaginative moniker like Liverpool's "John Lennon Airport"). <Terra Galaxia>, our coined theme to represent an alien planet ('Galaxia') on earth - or amidst our own existence ('Terra'), illustrates how modern day airports act as self-sufficient, extraterrestrial-like spheres with their super-modern architectures and technologies and host a clash of diverse nationalities and cultures, yet all of it this being grounded on each home planet. However, more importantly, the exhibition reflects upon paradoxical representations of "hospitality" at (inter) national borders; the coming and goings through the state-bound nonplace of the airport against a carefully orchestrated backdrop of a commercial openness blended with suspicion and paranoid security. The travel industry complicates hospitality like no other modern day institution; every single element - from immigration checks and duty free shops, to tourism adverts and counter-terrorism security - projects hospitality through a politically charged prism front-ended by a welcoming smile. Six artists offered a unique view of these forms of hospitality and expose concealed motives in various arenas: departure, customs, journey, baggage, immigration and arrival.

- DEPARTURE

Wil Bolton presents his work, Transition - Terminal, with images and sounds of various movements and metastasis captured from lncheon International Airport's departure gates. The work consists of two photographs cased in light boxes with collages of blurred arrows, numbers and alien Korean characters captured as if in a hurry. The noisiness is reversely represented in soundless photographs placed next to a pair of Korean horn speakers which play Bolton's recordings of the place. The nomadic travel to everywhere and nowhere is accentuated by the static nature of his work.

-CUSTOMS

Kyungah Ham's Abstract Weave - Louis Morris, Delta Gamma 1961 is described as 'North Korean hand embroidery on silk' and is linked to Ham's earlier Embroidery Projects where she sent forbidden articles to North Korea via intermediaries to be handembroidered. The travel of banned goods also had another layer of meaning: enforcing restricted communication between North and South Koreans punishable under National Security Acts on both sides. Ham's coded messages are weaved by North Korean weavers, naturally, would have been contemplated upon by them during the process. In previous cases, some weaved works were confiscated by airport authorities either in China or other places. The set of works presented at the <Terra Galaxia> exhibition were specially commissioned and thus never knew their fate until they (successfully) arrived.

-JOURNEY

Seoung Won Won's triptych is a personal confession, a metaphor of a journey, representing the past, present and the future. The central panel shows Won's state of being on another galaxy whilst on planet earth - i.e. airport, transit, on air etc -compounded by confused time zones. The vastness of the Galaxia is shown as the ocean. Her own portrait in the present is fragile as roots reach up to the sky instead of being grounded.

In the central panel, The Rippling Today, is a shallowly rooted tree with warm coloured Aowers (hope) contrasted by icicles (agony). Wondering Tomorrow illustrates the colourful actions; the wind blows from all directions - agony is replaced by hope.

-BAGGAGE

Through his seven sketches, Sen Chung explores the mixed emotions of hysteria and excitement. The Baggage area represents the near-end of a journey, where one looks forward to arriving at a new destination yet is unwittingly watched

by surveillance and interrogated on suspected contents. In a world of forbidden goods, sniffer dogs and unwelcome unattended bags, Chung comments on how today's air travel is permeated by this fear often exaggerated by the media. His abstract works are dotted around the exhibition with spacious gaps in between them as if to show the distances between the departure lounge to the Baggage area even though they are on different levels of the same building.

- IMMIGRATION

Suknam Yun placed her narrative on a sculpture, which tells of ironic experiences at various airports. Her work consists

of numerous hand-cut blue Korean mulberry paper in various shapes of stereotype races placed on a tall tower-like-structure. In front of a narrow passage is placed an opulent satin covered chair decked with spikes. Yun's work corresponds to many immigration issues in today's globalised society where the very notion of hospitality is dictated by national/state boundaries. Such selective relevance is best captured by Mireille Rosello's ("Postcolonial Hospitality") definition of the 'host': "before granting (his/her) hospitality, one must ascertain to which category the guest belongs. However the categories in question have been defined by the state, which then imposes its own identity politics on the host'."1 Postcolonial Hospitality/ Mirevlle Rosello, Postcolonial Hospitality; The Immigrant as Guest, Starford unlversim press, 2001, p.32

-ARRIVAL

Think of any arrival lounge in any country, and you are shown what has been selected for the visitors to 'enjoy' rather than

laying out the real, gritty bits of the country. Every place shows the most clinical and sanitised image of a well-run state.

Observing representations and images available at airports globally, such as postcard-like landscape images churned out

by every tourism ministry, Suk Kuhn Oh investigates the history of such efforts. Oh has been collecting postcards made by

foreign missionaries and colonial officers to Korea in the 19th century with what they thought were the "images of Korea".

The cliched images are exotic and Orientalist. Oh recreates these images using his own props and models - original images and drawings of old postcards are reincarnated as contemporary photographs - extracting the 'perceived image of us.'

CONCLUSION

In summary, although each artist commented on certain aspects of 'hospitality' at today's airport - the 21st century

medium between eclectic guests and (often) reluctant hosts -the works open more questions to what ultimately constitutes a national frontier, beyond challenging a simple host-guest relationship. For example, Ham's Louis Morris abstract paintings were forbidden from being carried in and out of North Korea because of the departure point (South Korea). Furthermore, Louis Morris's paintings would be banned in North Korea (or even in China in the old days) where the state viewed Abstract Expressionist paintings as embodying radical values of the West, or simply being 'degenerate.' Instead of the familiar propagandistic images of the ruler, or the 'Dear Leader', the Louis Morris' paintings may look like blood to them. However, for the North Korean weavers, the writings alongside the 'blood streams' could be read and may have conjured new thoughts. As coined by Marcel Duchamps, host plus guest equals "ghost." A wandering but omnipresent spirit roams the airports through surveillance cameras, infrared detective lenses, and maybe even sniffer dogs. Hospitality has its universal, global and local dimensions. This exhibition revisits what hospitality at state-orchestrated levels can induce, whether genuine or feigned.

Epilogue

Inspired by one of the recurring themes of <Terra Galaxia> "Aerotropolis", a special publication by Professor Edward Allington and Beevor Mull Architects accompany this exhibition. The publication is designed to look like a passport but contains no information thatis required for the "passports" we are accustomed to: i.e. a photograph of thebearer, identification details etc. It is even punched with a hole. The essay within the publication Artport looks at the notion of Aerotropolis and past artistic projects where various utopian ideas of making an Artport where artists could enter without a visa was achieved or imagined.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to Professor Edward who spent various evenings discussing the ideas back and

forth with our team and the Mull Architects.