Index Asia

To mark the 20th anniversary of its opening, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art presents the special exhibition Love, Labor, Doing Asia. Gyeonggi-do is land layered with industrial labor, migration and memories of disaster. Ansan, where the museum stands, is a city where people from over 100 countries live with their everyday lives interconnected. Over the past 20 years, the museum has interpreted these local conditions in the language of art and worked in close connection with the region. Extending that practice, the exhibition attempts to place the museum's location within the wider horizon of contemporary Asia. Following the performative stance of poet Kim Hyesoon's book I Do Woman Animal Asia, it does not treat Asia as a geography with boundaries already drawn. Asia is 1 concept: a name for the traces Western modernity, capital and state power have left on particular bodies and lands. The exhibition points to the places bearing that name, 1 at a time. They bear marks left by history and time. The 14 artists or teams working in 8 Asian countries retrace those marks through politics, ecology, labor, gender and disaster. Exploring what remains of imperial and colonial histories evokes a shared Asian history. The exhibition presents artists' perspectives on the sweeping movements of capital, the labor and migration they entail, and the love and conflicts arising in the process. It practices the active 'doing Asia' that the poet called for in an Asia with a history of passivity, extending a gesture of solidarity to others. To mark its twentieth anniversary, Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art presents the special exhibition Index Asia. Gyeonggi-do is a place layered with histories of industrial labor, migration, as well as lingering memories of disaster. Its home city, Ansan, is a vibrant crossroad where residents from over a hundred countries live side by side, their lives intertwined with one another. Over the past two decades, the Museum has translated these local conditions into a visual discourse while remaining closely attuned to the surrounding community. Extending this longstanding practice, the exhibition seeks to situate the Museum and its immediate geography within the broader horizon of contemporary Asia. The exhibition draws on the performative gesture of poet Kim Hyesoon’s I Do Woman Animal Asia. Here, Asia is not treated as a fixed geography bound by pre-existing borders. Rather, “Asia” serves as a name for the traces left on particular bodies and lands by Western modernity, capital, and state power.