Embodying a unique experience of enabling artistic practices in cusps of lived spaces as well as on Ilgwang Beach in Busan, South Korea, is the Sea Art Festival that is in its sixth iteration this year, with Calcutta-bred Ritika Biswas, becoming its first foreign and female artistic director, since the festival started in 1987 as a cultural event ahead of the Seoul Olympics. Also the youngest artistic director of this biennial festival (on till November 14), Ritika’s curatorial practice draws from relevant things such as working sans borders due to the pandemic, an emphasis on ecology and the theme this year — Non-/Human Assemblages. More in her words:
What is the direction you took while curating for this festival? What are its highlights that we can look forward to?
For the Sea Art Festival 2021, my curatorial approach lies in creating intimate encounters for the audience, to situate them in the worlds of human and non-human communities that are tethered to one another through the infinitely reproductive assemblages of water. My vision was also predicated on the artistic practices that each artist or collective embodied through their works, and how they manifested the concept of ‘’ for Sea Art Festival 2021 in multivalent ways across the site of Ilgwang Beach and Busan. I was keen to diverge from the usual notion of ecological or outdoor public festivals that mostly show sculptures or installations, choosing instead to create a multitude of access points for the audience, through immersive video installations, outdoor projections, indoor sites, text works, and soundscapes. While geographic diversity across artists and works was indubitably important, since my curatorial practice is quite lateral and engages various socio-political realms, it was important to also make sure there were resonant frequencies across the disparate flows of histories and imaginaries embedded within the artworks.
The histories of water and its currents can be traced across the corporeal and non-corporeal assemblages visualised and held within each of these works, and the most important strategy was to ensure every work was porous in its concept — that there was no insular or absolute boundary to its potential for interpretation, rendering these boundaries between the works, and thus the festival site, permeable. I wanted to illuminate not only the resonances across these works, but also constructive frictions and tensions, since these are crucial to the dynamics and interrelations among human and non-human ecologies.
Some highlights that might interest readers in India include Rohini Devasher’s gorgeous moving image work that will be projected onto Ilgwang Beach itself. It illuminates the secret and invisible world of oceanic diatoms. A multimedia work by Raqs Media Collective creates a playground of precarity by the East Sea via an automatic see-saw carrying an oxygen tank and an LED screen video of underwater divers. A large-scale installation of flagpoles and soundscape by Forest Curriculum foregrounds non-human agency and indigenous knowledge located in the Zomia.
Given the pandemic, how challenging was it to work on this project remotely and what sort of perspective does it lend to artists who are working on this ecologically-driven project?
Well I started off by working remotely for the first few months, due to Korea’s stringent Covid-19 border policies. This involved very intense and long Zoom calls, lots of research, video and photos, as well as conversations. The Busan Biennale Organising Team, especially the Exhibitions team were tremendously helpful in situating my understanding of the space, site, and culture of the festival this year, before I arrived there after finally getting my Korean visa.
As for international artists, we managed to fly down one artist duo from the US who absolutely had to be here to create their work on-site. But for all other 11 or 12 international artists and artist teams, we were producing their work remotely. This entailed a lot of trust and collaboration, especially between the artists and myself, but also the artists and their respective co-ordinators from the Busan team, and producers/fabricators of their installations in South Korea. In our ongoing period of bio-ecological collapse, it’s hypocritical for art festivals to reference critical and ecological action, but continue to perpetuate it through their cycles of immense waste and unnecessary international travel, so this was a helpful exercise in understanding how we might be able to collaborate more sustainably for future iterations of such large-scale festivals and biennales.
What do you think are some of the foremost responsibilities of curators in 2021? How do you balance the theme of a festival with the signature tone of expression of an artist?
I think it’d be too didactic for me to articulate what the foremost responsibilities of curators in 2021 might be. To listen to the voices and foreground the artwork of people and communities who are marginalised, to create honest, multidisciplinary creative ecologies, and to not be a performative ally in the art world are a few of the aspects I currently hold for myself.
As for the second question — very open conversations about our respective curatorial and artistic practices, and for each party to be open to nuancing our expressions through such exchanges.
As the festival’s youngest and first foreign director, how did you ensure a connect and understanding of the scope of this festival?
I spent a lot of time in the festival site, getting to know the area, but also the communities of people who live here, which I felt was crucial to understanding the lived histories of this space. While I felt it was important to read up and learn about the history of the previous Sea Art Festivals and the Busan Biennale at large, I knew this iteration was going to diverge quite significantly from these previous ones, so my connect was more to this specific iteration, site, and team, rather than trying to conform to other versions of the Sea Art Festival. But I did ensure I understood the artistic culture in Busan as much as I could, as this was formative for all the previous festivals. The Busan Biennale Committee was very welcoming of this approach as well, even though it was very different from previous SAF artistic directors.
With technology permeating art, how do you see the evolution of physical art festivals?
I’ve curated and produced both physical and digital festivals, most recently the British Council’s Museum Without Walls in the latter category. I think they exist in different planes of experience and curatorial thought, trying to emulate a gallery or museum experience via VR mapping or similar methods seems like a simulacrum of the real experience to me, a waste of the potential of digital realms to shift and play with how we might curate and consume art online.
As for incorporating technology in physical art festivals, I think it’s cool to sensorially embed the viewer in ways they don’t expect, such as VR or AR, as long as it’s not merely a trend or superfluous selling point. I love engaging with and using moving image works, soundscapes, and video works in my creative spaces and exhibitions, hence why I’ve included quite a few in this Sea Art festival, which is uncommon not only for this but other outdoor ecological festivals too.
Pictures courtesy of the festival