Travelling home(s): contemporary Korean art after the postcolonial

Abstract

Contemporary discussions of globalisation (in general) and postcolonialism (more specifically) have largely remained wed to critiques of the West, including around its outsized role in the proliferation of neoliberal economic logics. As Chen argues in Asia as Method, these discussions have precluded other kinds of discussions about globalisation and its ‘theories’ – those that are generated between Asian countries and peoples (recognising that ‘Asia’ itself is a construction). In this essay, we look towards a different kind of conversation about the postcolonialism, one that does not take the West as its primary interlocutor. We will look closely at two South Korean contemporary artists – Do Ho Suh (1962–) and Kimsooja (1957–) – and see how they work through contemporary, material concerns around ‘home’ and ‘place’. In particular, these artists point us towards ‘movement’ as a trope for displacing extant concerns with fixed identity and as a kind of ontological state of being in the world.

Keywords:

• curriculum studies
• globalisation
• art and aesthetics
• postcolonialism
• multicultural education
• critical theory

Acknowledgement

We thank Professor Jane Kenway for pointing us towards this important work.