Busan Biennale

Sea Art Festival 2017
Ars Ludens: Sea+Art+Fun
September 16–October 15, 2017

m2017.busanbiennale.org
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The Sea Art Festival 2017 is being held for thirty days from September 16 to October 15 at Dadaepo beach.

Introducing playful contemporary art under the theme of “playful art”
The Sea Art Festival 2017 wishes to transcend the bias that contemporary art is challenging, and focus on the playful attributes of art. The theme of the exhibition, Ars Ludens, emphasizes the fact that there are playful elements in the art produced by the human kind of the present age, that is, the descendants of Homo Ludens. More than 41 artworks of diverse genres including sculpture, installation and video exhibited in the Sea Art Festival 2017 surprise the audience with playful experiences.

The rebirth of Dadaepo Beach as a place of realized imagination
As an unparalleled form of exhibition, unique in the world, spreading out on Busan’s seashore, the Sea Art Festival emphasizes the site-specificity of the sea. The space of "the sea" is a place that arouses the human imagination of the unknown, as well as the spirit of exploration and challenge. Several artworks that fuel the imagination of visitors will be exhibited in the backdrop of the sea at the Sea Art Festival 2017, reinventing Dadaepo Beach as a space where new imaginations become manifest.

The visual play of familiar objects: From everyday life to art
The Sea Art Festival 2017 sheds light on the invisible gap between everyday life and art, and presents artworks that reinvent the common everyday objects into unique artworks. The Sea Art Festival 2017 hopes to contact the public intimately at the very grounds of everyday life through such visual play in public art, and also invite the audience to a world of new artistic experiences.

Artworks meditating on nature and environment
As a natural environment art festival, the Sea Art Festival has consistently exhibited artworks that reflect the perspective of nature both as an exhibition venue as well as a constituent element of the locality of Busan. The Sea Art Festival 2017 thus presents artworks that meditate on nature and environment.

The discursive understanding of playful art through academic programs
The Sea Art Festival 2017 presents a more multilayered academic program than the previous year. In order to facilitate the discursive understanding of playful art, the programs include an academic symposium for professionals, artists talks bringing the participating artists and the audiences together, and open seminars conducted through real time streaming. In particular, many are looking forward to this year’s academic symposium, which presents a professor Jin Joong-kwon from Dongyang University. Another remarkable program is the public Agora lectures and the matching program, which is a mentoring-style workshop that brings together young artists and theorists, critics and curators.

Urban Regeneration through art: Toward the Revitalization of Busan’s western region
The Busan Biennale Organizing Committee has successfully produced the effects of urban regeneration through art in various regions of Busan, with Busan Biennale held in the even years, and the Sea Art Festival held in the odd years. The typical examples of such endeavors include F1963 (in the former KISWIRE Suyeong Factory), as well as an exhibition on Dadaepo Beach in 2015, on Songdo Beach in 2013, and in Busanjin Station and Jwacheon apartment in 2012. The Busan Biennale Organizing Committee hopes to invigorate Busan’s western region through art and culture and communicate with the local people by holding the sea art festival on Dadaepo Beach once again this year.

Details of the Sea Art Festival 2017 is being consistently posted on the Busan Biennale official website.