'Yet, With Love' at Podo Museum in Jeju celebrates the undercelebrated

Arts & Design

Published: 07 Jul. 2022, 16:27 Updated: 07 Jul. 2022, 18:36

'Yet, With Love' at Podo Museum in Jeju celebrates the undercelebrated

The entrance of Podo Museum in Seogwipo, Jeju Island. The rainbow-shaped sign on top of the museum building is artist Ugo Rondinone's “Long Last Happy” (2020). [PODO MUSEUM]

SEOGWIPO, Jeju Island — Podo Museum, an art museum owned and operated by SK Group, speaks for minorities and the socially disadvantaged.

“Yet, With Love,” the museum’s second exhibition since opening its doors in April last year, reflects on the harsh realities faced by such people, centering on themes related to diaspora.

Podo Museum is located near the single-story boutique inn Podo Hotel and Pinx Golf Club, built by the Korean-Japanese architect Itami Jun. The museum and hotel got its name from the Korean word for grape, podo, because of how the hotel’s round roofs resemble grapes from a bird’s-eye view.

Yoko Ono's "Add Color (Refugee Boat)" (1960/2022), boat, water-based paint, artist's instruction piece, dimensions variable [PODO MUSEUM, YOKO ONO]

Seven artists and teams from all over the world — Beikyoung Lee, Dongju Kang, Yeondoo Jung, Renna Saini Kallat, Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan, Yoko Ono and Ugo Rondinone — are showcasing their works at the museum.

During a press preview of “Yet, With Love” on Monday, Podo Museum’s director, Chloe Heeyoung Kim, explained the meaning behind each work.

“This exhibition was created to remember the things everyone has in common, before considering the differences by which society has divided us, whether it be our backgrounds or tendencies,” Kim said. “We hope that visitors will think about the importance of accepting and acknowledging diversity, and look back at whether we’ve ever hurt others just because they are different.”

“Yet, With Love” includes five artworks that were specially planned and produced by Podo Museum to fit with the overall theme of “raising awareness about the museum’s social value.”

″Departure Board″ (2022) [PODO MUSEUM]

Pieces like “Departure Board” (2022), which is a split-flap departure board like those frequently seen at airports, continuously flips at short intervals to show 60 short quotes by people like a Jewish person who was forced to live in a concentration camp during World War II, a victim of the Apartheid in the 20th century and, recently, refugees who left Ukraine.

Another, like the short animated clip “Yet, With Love” (2022), tells a story through black-and-white charcoal drawings of people who, despite their differences, come together to understand each other. Indie duo Night Off’s song of the same title plays in the background, singing words of healing about how no one is truly alone in this world.

The seven artists prove that with art, it does not matter who you are or where you are from: You deserve to be respected and loved.

"Address" (2008) by Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan [PODO MUSEUM]

The Aquilizans, a married couple who emigrated to Australia from the Philippines in 2006 with their five children, illustrate the tough lives of immigrants through 140 50-centimeter (20-inch) square boxes — a tax-free box size when sent overseas from the Philippines.

The large-scale installation “Address” (2008) has these boxes stacked together in the shape of a “roofless house,” each densely packed with personal materials or necessities, such as slippers, clothes, board games and VCRs.

“If you look at the Philippines, there are probably 2.5 or 2.3 million Filipinos living overseas,” Alfredo Aquilizan said during the press event. “About 5,000 Filipinos leave the country every day […] So in 2006 we decided to move to Australia, and this project is actually the outcome of that move. We’d given each of our children one box, 50 by 50 by 50, to put the things that they want to bring along with them […] The content [inside the boxes] is not significant, but the idea of having the continuous connection with family; I think that’s the significance of this box.”

"Picture Bride" (2022) by Yeondoo Jung includes a small, humid greenhouse-like house filled with actual sugarcane, top, and a sculpture of three female high school students in Jeju that were made from sugar. [PODO MUSEUM]

Jung is a Seoul-based artist, and through “Picture Bride” (2022), he actually came to Jeju Island to cultivate sugarcane. In the exhibition is a small, humid greenhouse-like structure filled with actual sugarcane and a sculpture of three female high school students in Jeju — the latter all completely made from sugar. Even the background behind which the sculptures are placed and the sandy grails they are placed upon are made from sugarcane.

The name “Picture Bride” derives from some 7,000 women from the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) in the early 20th century who had emigrated to Hawaii to meet their labor worker husbands-to-be for the very first time — bringing along only a picture of the men.

“Picture Bride” recognizes these migrant workers’ hardships and how they felt like an unwelcome stranger in a new country.

When asked why he used sugar, Jung said that he was intrigued to see sugarcane from a new perspective. “When you look into history, especially when enslaved Africans had planted and harvested sugarcane in America, you realize how American and foreign sugar itself is, despite being something we eat every day,” Jung said.

Ono, the Japanese multimedia artist best known as John Lennon’s widow, placed a white boat in a white-walled room, titled “Add Color (Refugee Boat)” (1960/2022), where visitors are free to scribble or draw “messages of hope” using the blue paint available on site.

Some of the clowns from Rondinone's "Vocabulary of Soltitude" (2016) and the colorful glass panel "Love Invents Us" (1999/2022) [SHIN MIN-HEE]

A close-up of the clowns in "Vocabulary of Soltitude" shows how even clowns, despite their usual cheerful and joyous nature, become exhausted, eliciting a sense of sorrow. [SHIN MIN-HEE]

The highlight of “Yet, With Love” is granted to Swiss-born artist Rondinone, with “Vocabulary of Solitude” (2016), “Love Invents Us” (1999/2022) and “Long Last Happy” (2020), each, a collection of mannequin clowns who sleep in distinctive positions, a rainbow-color foil window and a rainbow-shaped sign on top of the museum’s roof. Rondinone celebrates happiness, as well as pride.

“Yet, With Love” continues until July 3 next year. Podo Museum is open every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. except Tuesdays. Tickets are 10,000 won ($7.70) for adults. Audio guides are available via QR codes in the exhibition or through the museum’s homepage in four languages: English, Korean, Chinese and Japanese.

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]