Friday 20th October

I have just spent my final morning here in Cheongju and have been back to the biennial, whereby now some of the staff recognise me and I have had my photo taken a few times...I discovered yesterday there are catalogues of the various sections and I returned with enough money today to puchase them. The catalogues include short biographic details on the artists which is a huge help and of course photos of the work.

The exhibition main site has two main pavilions with the themes 'crafts a mode of life' and 'in search of lost values', the former exploring the role of crafts in imparting and shaping cultural values and the latter its connection to lifestyle, although this may all be lost to the vast hordes of school children. The exhibitions mix some small scale historic collections such a Cameroonian bags, Iranian and Pakistani textiles and Korean wooden funerary figures with the contemporary work. Each of these pavilion exhibitions is subdivided into about four thematic sections such as communication, rituals and amusement with between 6 - 10 works in each section, all varying in discipline, materials and concept. In addition there is a pavilion with an exhibition of intangible cultural treasures of which there were only 31 in the whole of Korea in 1964 - they would need the V & A then - and now about three times that - the whole scenario is somewhat strange. Part of this pavilion also contains a small exhibition of Itaian work - a big display of contemporary glass from Murano and then a small selection of three or four Italian makers.

The other site has the international competition. I'm intrigued as to how makers might end up in one site and not another. Roseanne Bartley's partner Vito Bila has work in this section.
I met one of the exhibiting artists today, a maker from Santa Fe who makes book forms relating to journeys and she was giving a talk at lunchtime: there are a number of American artists in the exhibition. I gather that quite a lot of the international museums come to the biennial, although it is completely different to something like Collect, which is more tightly curated and has denser quantities of work. I am also intrigued as to how the big ceramics exhibition works in Korea and whether that has an impact on the representation of ceramics in the Biennial.

My plan tomorrow is to wander around the area Insadong which has many of the small scale galleries and do a couple of the museums on Sunday, especially the Leung Samsung museum which everyone recommends.

Off to hunt the bus and yet more accommodation...