Stephanie Seungmin Kim

Research Project Title: Arts and Politics: Art for Art’s Sake versus Art for Life.

Supervisor(s): Grant Watson, Professor Victoria Walsh

My film Fragments is a ‘Curator’s Film’ that addresses how historical amnesia can be brought to the surface. It is a counterpart to my thesis, which is an exploration of what it is like to curate contemporary art emerging from Korea since the 1990s to a wider public. It involves various attempts on how I would theorise and conceptualise them. By looking at the repressed history through their artworks and the world they are emanating from, I propose a new concept called a ‘Curator’s Film’. It is a highly symbolic curatorial mediation that has artists’ works and various archives to provide context, but away from text-only representation. There are numerous collaborators including composers, editors, cinematographers and designer. I use graphic symbolism using a Deck of Cards, and by looking at how history has been obstructed and misinterpreted, the research suggests one way to overcome logocentric narratives by learning from artists.

Stephanie Seungmin Kim is a curator, filmmaker and producer based in London and across Asia and Europe. She is the director of Iskai Contemporary Art (www.iskaiart.com) and Sleepers Summit (www.sleeperssummit.com), which have hosted major international government-affiliated exhibitions commemorating national and international diplomacy and culture. She has also art directed the film Sleepers in Venice film and the ost album. One of the most extensive exhibition was Jikji, the Golden Seed, the title exhibition of the 1st Jikji Korea International Festival, featuring 30 artists attracted 40,000 people over eight days. Her interests in ecology also spun since early days, including Earth Alert: Photographic Responses to Climatee Change (2009), Project Seoul Apparel, as a part of Seoul Biennale of Architecture, a special exhibition marking United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP13 in Inner Mongolia and Bellong Bellong Now 2020, consisting conference, artists residency, exhibitions, publishing, and architectural projects focusing on sustainability. Since 2005, she has directed over 80 international exhibitions, with around 500 artists in 22 cities. Collections include A Soldier’s Tale (2013, Asia House), Liverpool Biennial City-States Terra Galaxia (2012, Liverpool) Asia Media Landscape (2010, Liverpool) and more. Stephanie was the founding curator of the Korean Cultural Centre UK in London from 2007 to 2011. In 2004, Stephanie gained her Masters in the History of Art from the University College London and, in 2003, a BA (Hons) in Fine and Decorative Arts at Sotheby’s Institute.