Asia, The Apparatus

Alice Hall
2 days ago
3 min read

Asia, The Apparatus

Venue: National Asian Culture Center (ACC)

Location: Gwangju, South Korea

Since opening in 2015, the National Asian Culture Center has built a significant collection of experimental film and video art from across Asia. Central to this effort has been a commitment to artists whose practices remain independent of commercial pressures and institutional trends. Rather than collecting according to predetermined categories, the center has adopted a flexible and research-oriented approach, identifying works according to their cultural and historical significance. This commitment extends beyond acquisition to encompass preservation, restoration, and exhibition, ensuring that these works remain active within public discourse rather than confined to archival storage.

Asia, The Apparatus commemorates the institution’s tenth anniversary through a presentation of experimental films and video works researched and acquired over the past decade. Bringing together diverse practices from across the continent, the exhibition explores the expanded field of the moving image, where experimental cinema and video art intersect. Through this framework, the exhibition recalls collective memories and shared narratives that emerge from multiple Asian contexts while maintaining the distinct historical and cultural experiences that shape them.

The exhibition reflects upon the complex trajectories of modern and contemporary Asia, marked by colonization and division, revolution and modernization, censorship and resistance, discrimination and exclusion. Throughout these transformations, media technologies have functioned as instruments for recording history while simultaneously serving as mechanisms through which memory has been edited, erased, or reorganized. The concept of the “apparatus” is therefore understood in two interconnected ways: as the material tools of image-making—the camera, film stock, projector, and screen—and as the broader systems through which events are documented, histories are constructed, and collective memory is shaped. By bringing these meanings together, the exhibition reveals the tensions between what has been represented and what has remained outside the frame.

The exhibition is organized around three thematic stages: Dictation, Representation, and Rewriting. Dictation addresses histories recorded through external systems of authority rather than through self-determination. Representation focuses on the recovery and visibility of marginalized experiences. Rewriting proposes alternative readings of historical narratives, reassembling fragments of memory to generate new understandings of the past and present.

The architecture of the exhibition plays a significant role in this narrative structure. Installed within the circular form of the building, whose design recalls the logic of the panopticon, the first floor is dedicated entirely to women’s histories and narratives. This curatorial decision foregrounds experiences that have often been shaped through external forms of observation and control, positioning them at the beginning of the exhibition’s trajectory. From this starting point, visitors encounter a range of voices and perspectives that gradually move toward forms of self-representation and collective agency.

Eye-level view of layered oxidized metal sculpture with textured surfaces — Asia, Apparatus. © Artnewsmonthly 2026

Participating artists

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Nguyen Trinh Thi, Han Okhi, Kim Soyoung, Maryam Tafakory, Im Go-Eun, Women With Disabilities Empathy, Kim Dong-Ryung X Park Kyoung-Tae, Ito Takashi, Cinema Gwangju, Ming Wong, Seo Won-Tae, Your Bros. Filmmaking Group, Listen To The City, Tomotosi, Yoon Choong-Geun, Bong Joon Ho, Pan Lu, Taiki Sakpisit, Kim Kyungmook, Alexander Ugay, Tiffany Sia, Adachi Masao, Hirasawa Go, Jung Jae-Hoon, Lee Kai Chung, Hong Jin-Hwon, Aprilsnow, DJ Soulscape, Jang Minseung, Mhtl

Participating designers for Poster as Cinematography

ganzilganzilganzil, Gang Moonsick, Kwon Suzin, Kim Dongshin, Kim Somi, (No-Name) Press, Noh Sungil (Sojanggak), Byul.Org (Cho Taesang/Hwang Soyoon), Min Dong-In, Park Goeun, Paeg Ganghyun, Joe Moonyoung (Tinytitan), Shin Sunah, Shin Shin, Aloud Lab., Yoon Yeonwoo (Vinylhouse Squat), Jung Yoonzoo, Choi Jisun (Sagak Press), Hoeyo