Reigniting the Fire: From Gwangju to Istanbul
- Ece Yıldırım
- 4 Tem
- 25 dakikada okunur
Held as part of the 14th Gwangju Biennale, FFFFIRE began as a guerrilla satellite exhibition that questioned the boundaries of institutional art spaces. Now, reimagined in Istanbul under the curatorial direction of Gyeyeon Park, it continues to spark dialogues between artists, contexts, and audiences. In this conversation, we explore how FFFFIRE evolved from its roots in Gwangju to its new form at IMALAT-HANE IMÇ Project Space.
This interview was conducted via email between November 5th and November 9th.
1. To begin with, could you tell us about the concept behind FFFFIRE? What does the title represent, and how did the idea for this project emerge?
Since 2021, I have been organizing annual experimental exhibition collaborations with around ten artists. While preparing the 2023 project, I was inspired by the theme of the 14th Gwangju Biennale, Soft and Weak like Water. Seeing this theme—which originates from the phrase “上善若水 (the highest good is like water)” in Laozi’s Tao Te Ching—I found myself wondering: If the Biennale focuses on water, what would it mean for us to explore fire, its opposite?
Fire is a powerful symbol of human civilization. I wanted to approach it not through Western concepts, but through Eastern thought. The parable of the burning house (三界火宅) from the Lotus Sutra became the philosophical foundation of the exhibition. In this story, children play inside a burning house, oblivious to the danger surrounding them. This mirrored our own condition: continuing everyday life in the midst of planetary crises such as climate change and ecological disasters.
The house we used as the exhibition venue had a symmetrical structure, with four rooms on each floor. Its layout resembled the Chinese character 燚, which is composed of four repetitions of the character for fire (火). This is how the title FFFFIRE (불불불불) was born.
2. FFFFIRE was first presented during the 14th Gwangju Biennale as a “guerrilla satellite exhibition.” What motivated you to create something that exists outside the main institutional framework?
Rather than intentionally positioning ourselves outside the institutional framework, FFFFIRE strategically engaged with the Biennale’s institutional landscape. During the Biennale period, contemporary art professionals from around the world visit Gwangju. We saw this as an opportunity to enrich their experience of Korean contemporary art by offering additional, more diverse encounters.
Significantly, both FFFFIRE and the Gwangju Biennale drew conceptual foundations from Eastern philosophy—Laozi’s Tao Te Ching and the Buddhist Lotus Sutra. We believed that connecting the two exhibitions through this shared philosophical ground would generate meaningful thematic synergies.
FFFFIRE deliberately utilized the Biennale’s institutional structure to amplify our visibility and impact, while at the same time making sure that smaller initiatives outside the official program became visible, consequential practices rather than footnotes. It was not simply about being inside or outside the institution, but about making a curatorial decision that considered the entire topography of Gwangju’s art ecosystem.
3. When bringing FFFFIRE to Istanbul, what aspects of the project evolved? Did the local context shape the exhibition in unexpected ways?
This exhibition is part of KOFICE’s (Korea Foundation for International Cultural Exchange) “Touring K-ARTs” program, which, in principle, required us to transport the works shown in Gwangju as they were. However, once the location and context changed so fundamentally, we began to question whether simply relocating the artworks could truly fulfill the exhibition’s original intentions.
I asked the artists to treat fire not merely as a theme or symbol, but as an “operative material.” Once ignited, fire never maintains a fixed form—it continually transforms according to its surrounding environment and conditions. We wanted to adopt this inherent nature of fire as the operating principle of the works themselves. Rather than following the conventional touring model of “moving the same works to different locations,” we sought to integrate the acts of combustion and transformation into the very mechanism of the exhibition. In this way, the exhibition was redefined not as a repetition of finished results, but as an ongoing process of “re-ignition,” in which relationships and energies emerge anew in each place.
Our research into İMÇ, the exhibition venue in Istanbul, revealed significant historical layers that became a crucial turning point. İMÇ (Istanbul Manifaturacılar Çarşısı) was originally built as a market for textile merchants, later transformed into a center for the music recording industry, and has now been reborn as a cultural and artistic space. This architecture, embodying the rise and fall of industrialization and modernization, felt as though it had arrived at its current form through multiple “ignitions.” Moreover, the building directly faces the Süleymaniye Mosque. Istanbul’s unique topography—where religious tradition and secular modernity coexist—is condensed within this space.
Within this context, rather than simply reinstalling existing works, the artists created new pieces that drew Istanbul’s historical stratification and cultural intersections into the heart of their practices.
4. The exhibition’s title evokes intensity, energy, and transformation. How do these ideas resonate with the works and artists featured?
The Istanbul exhibition is a palimpsest. A palimpsest is a method of erasing writing on parchment and writing anew on top of it, where previous traces do not completely disappear but coexist with new layers. The embers that emerged in Gwangju were re-ignited and reconfigured as they encountered entirely different spaces, contexts, and audiences—this is the core of the Istanbul exhibition.
The participating artists treated fire not as a mere image or symbol, but as an actual "operative material." Artist Seo Beophyeon literally burned the sutra case (a rotating repository for Buddhist scriptures) presented in the Gwangju exhibition and collected the ashes to create a new work. The material's destruction by fire became the starting point for a new creation. Artist Kim Youngnam questioned what an artist should do in a world filled with fire, seeking enlightenment through the extreme physical practice of three-step-one-bow prostration. Artist Ha Seokjun, inspired by his mother's cremation, presented a VR work that allows viewers to indirectly experience cremation. For all of them, fire is both a force and a medium that fundamentally transforms matter, memory, and meaning.
Through the curatorial process, this idea was articulated into three stages of “re-ignition.”
1. Re-ignition of the exhibition as a whole - An exhibition is truly ignited through its audience. After meeting approximately 7,000 visitors in Gwangju in 2023, the exhibition moved to Istanbul, where Asia and Europe, multiple religions and cultures intersect. We brought the Korean artists' ways of thinking, Buddhist worldviews, and attitudes toward life, hoping that new flames would arise here. This is not simply a relocation of the exhibition, but a process of being ignited once again in completely different cultural soil.
2. Re-ignition of space - In Gwangju, we wrapped the house in aluminum foil, transforming it into a space like a "hot iron plate." In Istanbul, that aluminum returns as curtains, filling the space like smoke. The curtains operate as both material and nearly immaterial presences, replacing solid walls with permeable membranes.
3. Re-ignition of artworks - Multiple layers of meaning were added as fire was reapplied to Gwangju's outcomes. For example, Lee Jihoo's work began as a mourning ritual of gilding the belongings of the deceased found in his hometown house that had burned down. The process of carefully wrapping the work with colorful threads for transport to Istanbul—preparation for movement, ritualistic packaging—itself became a practice that dissolved the boundaries between art and ritual, the dead and the living, life and death.
5. How did you select the participating artists? What connects their artistic languages within the framework of FFFFIRE?
Unlike typical curated exhibitions, our project does not select artists to fit a predetermined theme. Rather, it works the other way around. The artists are established first, and I discover and develop new themes each year with this fixed group. This collaboration, which began in 2021, is now in its fourth iteration, with most members continuing to participate except when personal schedules prevent their involvement.
The defining characteristic of this group is its diversity in generation and medium. Ages span from those born in the 1970s to the 1990s, and the range of genres is remarkably broad—painting, sculpture, photography, video, sound, participatory installation, VR, and more. This diversity enables multilayered and rich interpretations of a single theme. At the same time, this is not merely a parallel presentation of individual artists, but a kind of community where members advise and influence one another.
Interestingly, within this group, artists venture beyond their familiar genres. For instance, Ku Hyeyoung, who primarily works in performance, presented paintings for this group, while Lee Jihoo, a painter, attempted new installation work. The stability of established relationships paradoxically enables new experimentation.
My role as curator is to create new layers of narrative among these diverse works. Within the exhibition space, works collide and complement each other, initiating unexpected dialogues.
To offer specific examples: Kim Jayi's vivid sounds of everyday life from Gwangju and Istanbul meet Ha Seokjun's cremation VR work, revealing the boundary between life and death—moments where the sounds of daily life coexist with death's ritual. Kim Youngnam's three-step-one-bow practice—an intensely personal and solitary discipline seeking answers—meets and expands Cho Eunsol's work on the possibilities of community solidarity. Additionally, Koo Rae's sound and visual patterns created from immaterial data encounter Kim Jihee's highly material and tactile work, revealing each other more clearly through the contrast between material and immaterial, analog and digital.
6. (For both curator and artists) How did the collaboration process unfold between you? Were there any moments where the dialogue between curatorial vision and artistic practice shifted or expanded the meaning of the works?
Our collaboration process follows clear steps, yet allows for flexible dialogue within them. First, I establish the exhibition theme after deeply considering all participating artists’ practices and interests, then discuss it thoroughly with the curatorial team (Kim Youngnam, Ku Hyeyoung, and Chon Jaewoo) before sharing it with the artists. The artists then autonomously develop their works based on their interpretations of the theme, continuously sharing their process with me. Finally, we discuss the placement of works within the exhibition space together. Most meetings take place online, but the density of our conversations is far from light.
In this process, there were moments when I intervened more actively, leading to changes in the final form of the works. For example, the Istanbul exhibition venue, Imalat-hane, is a narrow and elongated space. I wanted to make use of this spatial characteristic by placing Kim Jihee’s Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva figure at the deepest point. Like a pilgrim walking down a long corridor to reach a sanctuary, I hoped to create an experience where visitors traverse the exhibition and finally encounter a mystical presence. As a result, the final display differed from the artist’s original concept of a ceiling installation.
Ku Hyeyoung’s work also underwent an intriguing transformation. Originally, the installation was participatory: viewers would unroll a horizontal scroll themselves to view the work. Through our discussions, however, we decided to let the scroll cascade down from the ceiling like a waterfall. This shift allowed us to emphasize a sense of tension—already unfurled, yet still appearing to flow.
These changes were new possibilities discovered jointly by the curator and artists within the context of the space and in relation to other works. I believe collaboration is ultimately a process in which visions collide and merge, moving toward destinations that none of us could have foreseen alone.
Hyeyoung KU: I participated both as an artist and as part of the curatorial team, which meant deep engagement from the research phase. The exhibition's strong conceptual framework enabled me to create work in a completely new style—something I'd never attempted before and plan to develop further.
Rae KOO: The collaboration unfolded more like a conversation than a structured process. Each artist brought their own rhythm and intensity, and through the curator’s vision, these energies began to resonate rather than align. It wasn’t about fitting into a single theme, but about listening to one another, to the space, and to the shifting tone of the exhibition itself. For me, that listening process expanded the meaning of my own work. I began to see how the curatorial framework could act as an amplifier — allowing the individual works to echo and transform through proximity. The dialogue blurred the boundary between curatorial intent and artistic intuition, creating a shared frequency where difference became the source of connection.
Junho HONG: Our exhibition team first came together in 2021 for the satellite exhibition of the postponed Gwangju Biennale, titled “What does T.D.S.F. (Time, Death, Sorrow, Funeral)”. Since then, we have continued to collaborate through “Orange Attack” (2022) and “FFFFire” (2023), and this Istanbul edition marks our fourth exhibition together. Because of this shared history, we have developed a deep understanding of each other’s strengths and an attitude of mutual respect. So rather than anxiety, what we always feel in the process of collaboration is anticipation and excitement. Preparing for the 2023 “FFFFire” exhibition was, in truth, a very challenging time for all of us — yet it remains one of my most cherished memories. That is why, when the Istanbul exhibition was confirmed, I felt genuinely joyful. From the planning stages to the installation period here at İmalat-Hane, the experience has been filled with a sense of energy and delight. Conceptually, the idea of bringing the 2023 works across time and space into Istanbul — as if through a process of combustion, involving both physical and chemical transformation — was deeply inspiring. Sharing the creative process with other artists, each working in their own medium and language, also offered me a great deal of learning and reflection. I have always enjoyed exploring formal changes in my work, but this experience made me think about how both the form and meaning of an artwork can transform beyond time and space. It opened up a new horizon in my practice — and through this journey, I also found myself learning from the works of my fellow artists.
Jihee KIM: This collaboration felt less like negotiation and more like deep listening. Through conversations with the curator, I began to see how my work could resonate with the theme of fire. Instead of imposing a meaning, the curator opened up new possibilities that I hadn’t considered. At some point, fire shifted from “destruction” to “response”— and that was the moment our thoughts expanded together.
Youngnam KIM: Artists typically conceive and create their work by envisioning what concept it will embody and how it will be developed. In this exhibition, I was able to discuss and share the thought process from the conceptual stage, not only as an artist but also as a member of the Creait team, engaging with the curator. Above all, I received fresh stimulation from experiencing the curator's perspective on viewing an exhibition that weaves together artists' works beyond an individual artist's viewpoint. The most memorable moment was when we laid out our respective ideas before the exhibition concept was finalized and engaged in heated discussions about them. Of course, I'm also grateful that as an artist, I simultaneously received both encouragement and a sense of creative tension from the curator.
7. ( For the artists, collective response ) How did each of you interpret the concept of fire in your own work? Did working within this shared theme influence or transform your approach?
Hyeyoung KU: My work, The Unquenchable Fire, operates narratively rather than physically. These processes unfold through the fire of our contemporary moment. "Burning" appears as the relentless consumption of late capitalism—neon signs, digital screens, smartphones glowing in the dark. Fire has transformed from natural energy into the artificial lights of desire and commerce. "Transforming" captures this shift itself: how fire became digital, how flames became pixels, how warmth became the cold glow of advertisements. But this transformation has consequences—the climate crisis shows fire's uncontrollable revenge: animals fleeing forest fires, polar bears on melting glaciers, skies choked with black smoke. Yet "rebuilding from ashes" emerges through the image of protesters marching with torches. Here, fire returns as a shared commons, a symbol of solidarity and collective resistance. It's a cautious hope—that fire might once again belong to the community rather than consumption, carrying the possibility of regeneration.
Rae KOO: In my audiovisual installation, fire is interpreted as both an energy and a warning. The work transforms data — such as global warming indices, energy flows, disaster zones, and emotional responses to climate change — into synchronized patterns of light and sound. These signals are reflected through mirrored structures, creating a kaleidoscopic spatial installation where the audience can see and hear the invisible crisis multiplying around them. For me, fire symbolizes the excessive use of energy that humanity has depended on for survival, but is now paying the cost for. It is not only the flame itself but also the heat, the residue, and the imbalance it leaves behind. Working within this shared theme of “fire” deepened my reflection on transformation — how destruction, warmth, and renewal coexist. Through this process, I began to perceive sound and light not merely as expressive tools but as energetic fields that connect human and nonhuman systems through reflection and resonance.
Junho HONG: In the 2023 exhibition〈불불불불 (FFFFire)〉, I created an installation work inspired by Mark Lynas’s book Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency, visualizing the transformations that occur as the Earth’s temperature continues to rise. (Reference: Instagram link) For the 2025 Istanbul edition of 〈FFFFIRE〉, however, I shifted my focus from the physical relocation of the installation to a more immaterial approach. I imagined a post–mass extinction era, where the Earth’s temperature has risen by six degrees and all the animals described in the Lotus Sutra—owls, eagles, crows, weasels, snakes, and others—have disappeared. In that future, humans would only be able to “search” for these extinct species online. I recreated those hypothetical search results using generative AI, and then painted over the images with unreal, sorrowful hues before digitizing them again. The final images were projected onto a large, hand-crumpled screen and re-photographed with a camera, merging digital and physical traces in one frame. This immaterial process and the act of imagining the future evoked a new sensory experience for me. Moreover, the silver curtain installation by Professor Jeon Jae-woo, who designed the exhibition space, divided each artist’s area while also creating a smoky, atmospheric continuity that naturally resonated with the tone of my work.
Jihee KIM: For me, fire is a symbol of response. It erases, but it also reveals. It destroys, yet it leaves traces. Rather than resurrection, it is the moment when what has disappeared speaks back to us in another form. Working within this theme allowed me to look at disappearance and residue with more courage.
Youngnam KIM: (This question also includes the answer to Q.9.) Fire is never fixed; it is fluid. Moreover, the shape of fire is diverse and ever-changing from moment to moment. (There is no opportunity to see the same shape of fire again once you've seen it—meaning no two fires are identical.) It can move through the tiniest gap, yet it can also travel across continents. Fire is both creation and destruction, static yet dynamic. It is both light and heavy, attracting yet repelling. It is something material that can be seen (flames, smoke, ash, etc.), energy that can be felt (heat, the cooling of heat, rekindling, etc.), a smell that can be perceived (pungency, etc.), and something invisible and emotional (feelings about disappearance, passion, life and death, etc.). Therefore, rather than defining 'fire' in a single phrase or speaking of it as one entity, I would say that 'fire' is a conceptual word that encompasses and refers to all of these things. To express it in my own way: 'fire' wearing the face of 'fire.'My work on 'fire' in Gwangju two years ago began with the thought: why do people fail to recognize the problems that humanity and society face, or why do they quickly pass by them even when they see them? We forget too quickly. So I created a footage film by editing approximately 100 video clips, selected from about three years of televised news, organized into roughly 10 themes (categories). Through this work, I hoped people would recognize the here and now, thinking, ‘these things are happening around me.'This year's work in Istanbul began with the question that arose after the Gwangju work: 'Then what can an artist do?'—questions like 'Does an artist fulfill their role simply by creating work (revealing problems)? Did my work actually have any impact on viewers? What can an artist do as a member of society?' I became more curious about the journey of thought and practice (process) rather than the work (result) itself. If in Gwangju I showed 'fire' itself (society in danger), in Istanbul I hoped to show my (the artist's) 'attitude' in facing that ‘fire.'So I decided to burn my body. I decided to do 'sambo-ilbae' (three steps and one bow), something I had never once considered before. Through 'sambo-ilbae,' which some have performed as an act of resistance or struggle, and others as an expression of will or salvation, I decided to throw myself into that 'practice' as a process without any specific purpose. And I became curious about what would be at the end of that practice, what questions I would ask again. A journey seeking 'questions' rather than ‘answers.
8. Could you talk about any new site-specific or reimagined works created for the Istanbul version? How did the IMALAT-HANE IMÇ Project Space inspire the installation or presentation?
All works in the Istanbul exhibition were newly created. Rather than simply relocating works from Gwangju, we fundamentally transformed the existing pieces by applying both physical and conceptual "fire" to them. This was a concrete enactment, at the level of individual works, of the "re-ignition" process implied by the exhibition title FFFFIRE.
The most dramatic transformation occurred in the space itself. In Gwangju, we wrapped the house's walls and ceilings in aluminum foil, creating an intense space like a "hot iron plate." In Istanbul, that aluminum was reborn as "smoke" in the form of aluminum curtains. What had been solid became vapor-like; what had functioned as a barrier became a permeable membrane.
These smoke-like curtains transform the IMALAT-HANE IMÇ Project Space—an open, undivided space—into a state of being "closed yet open." The curtains fill the space while blurring boundaries, creating a tension where division and integration occur simultaneously. As visitors pass through the aluminum curtains, encountering the works, the experience resembles navigating through smoke-filled flames.
The İMÇ complex itself was also an important source of inspiration. Built in the 1950s–60s as a market for textile merchants, it later became the center of Turkey's music recording industry, then experienced a decline with the advent of the digital age. Now, reborn as a cultural and artistic space, it has once again gained vitality.
İMÇ is a symbolic site where art and commerce, past and present, decline and regeneration intersect. The building once symbolized the "flames" of Turkish modernization and industrialization, but it is also a space left after those fires burned out. And now, cultural embers are being ignited again. With its layered traces of modernization, commerce, decline, and regeneration, İMÇ was the perfect stage to physically embody FFFFIRE's philosophy—continuous transformation and re-ignition.
Hyeyoung KU: The space fundamentally shaped the work. In Gwangju, the exhibition space was-14-a former residential house, which led me to paint House on Fire—inspired by the Lotus Sutra, depicting people unaware their home is burning. In Istanbul, the İMÇ is a former market building. This commercial architecture demanded a different response—it pushed me to address the relationship between capitalism and fire directly.
Rae KOO: Compared to the Gwangju version, Istanbul feels denser and more stratified — a city composed of overlapping times and lives. The modular concrete structure of the İMÇ building, with its layers of wear and traces of daily labor, became an essential part of my process. I was drawn to its porous texture and acoustics, allowing the work to breathe with the space itself. For this version, I reimagined the installation to emphasize resonance rather than representation — transforming the sound and light into vibrations that interact with the raw surfaces of the architecture. In a way, the piece became a dialogue between the data-driven system I brought and the living materiality of the building.
Junho HONG: The Horanggasinamu Art Studio in Gwangju, where I previously exhibited, was a former missionary residence built over a century ago—a space with a perfect left–right symmetry. It was the ideal setting to unfold the story of the Three Realms of Fire (Samgye Hwataek) from the Lotus Sutra. In contrast, the İMÇ Project Space in Istanbul led me to think beyond a simple physical relocation of that narrative, toward a reflection on its chemical transformation and transition. In Gwangju, I imagined the environment changing with every one-degree rise in temperature, structuring the space as an installation. But here in Istanbul, I envisioned a world where everything has already ended—a landscape of loss, where hope no longer exists. Through collaboration with AI, I expressed this distorted and desolate future in the form of digital photographic works. The architectural space of İMÇ reached me only as lines on a floor plan, yet those lines evoked a kind of tactile imagination, as if I were tracing the structure with my fingertips. That experience ultimately led me to approach this work as a kind of “tactile photograph”—a surface like a crumpled plane, where touch and vision merge into one.
Jihee KIM: This work was reimagined specifically for Istanbul. The coexistence of the market’s noise and the mosque’s calm created the exact tension my piece needed.IMÇ is not a sterile white cube — it is a space with scars and memory. That imperfection strengthened the work.
Youngnam KIM: The IMALAT-HANE IMÇ project space first gave me the feeling that its location was close to 'life' and people's daily living. A place where everyday scenes themselves can become wonderful works of art. However, I thought: if there were a small spark (spark) there, what kind of relationship would this 'fire' create with its surroundings? I believe that an artist's life—that is, their work—is no different from ordinary people's lives. It's about looking at oneself and one's surroundings in one’s own way and living accordingly. Today, too, I come and go through the market filled with the sounds of bargaining and traffic, pausing to look at the goods in the display windows. Surrounded by cats and dogs, I gaze at the nearby mosque, and when night falls, I hear the cheerful voices of intoxicated people echoing from the alleyways.
9. What does it mean to bring a Korean-born independent exhibition into Istanbul’s art scene? Do you see this as a cultural dialogue or a continuation of the same fire in a new space?
Fire does not burn alone. The basic condition for combustion, the “fire triangle,” requires three elements: combustible material (fuel), oxygen, and ignition temperature. Without any one of these, fire cannot ignite.
We do not see this exhibition as a simple spatial relocation from Gwangju to Istanbul. Rather, it is a process in which the embers we brought encounter a completely different place, people, and history—and ignite anew. What we brought from Gwangju is the fuel: the Korean artists’ works, ways of thinking grounded in Buddhist philosophy, and creations condensed from their sensibilities and skills. But this alone cannot sustain a fire. The context and atmosphere of Istanbul as a place—and, above all, the audience’s interpretations and responses—must become the oxygen for the flame to truly take hold.
Istanbul is a city where diverse religions and cultures have intersected for millennia. Christianity and Islam, East and West, coexist here. This essence of the city resonates deeply with FFFFIRE’s non-dualistic thinking, which seeks to move beyond rigid boundaries. At Imalat-hane, with the Süleymaniye Mosque visible just outside, we hope that Buddhist philosophies and Korean artists’ practices will meet Istanbul’s cultural soil to spark new flames.
What matters is that this is not a one-way transmission. The flames that burned in Gwangju will encounter entirely different histories, memories, and futures in Istanbul, and will ignite in new forms. In that process, through the interpretations and responses of Istanbul’s audience, the artists and I will also be transformed. This, to me, is true intercultural dialogue—not one side speaking while the other listens, but a process in which we mutually ignite and transform one another.
I hope that the Korean artists’ distinctive approach—cyclical thinking of ignition, transformation, extinction, and regeneration, and artistic practice mediated through fire—will resonate with Istanbul’s audience, while we in turn gain new insight from them.
Rae KOO: Bringing an independent exhibition that began in Korea to Istanbul is more than relocating a project — it’s about allowing the work to adapt, translate, and breathe within a new cultural and emotional context. In Gwangju, the work did not particularly respond to the local characteristics; it was more conceptual and data-driven. But in Istanbul, I felt an emotional pull to the city — to its atmosphere, its warmth, and its history that carries both fragility and resilience. So, I see this version as both a dialogue and a continuation of the same fire: the flame that began as a reflection on human energy now takes on new shades of feeling and rhythm within Türkiye’s layered landscape.
Junho HONG: The red tone used in the poster and promotional images for the 2023 exhibition〈불불불불 (FFFFire)〉immediately reminded me of the vivid color of the Turkish flag. That visual connection already suggested a sense of continuity between the two contexts. At the same time, I saw another layer of continuity in the fact that our project, which began as a satellite exhibition of the 2021 Gwangju Biennale, has now evolved into a satellite exhibition of the 2025 Istanbul Biennial. It felt as if the same spark that was first ignited in Gwangju had found its way here, still burning. After arriving in Istanbul, I learned from the director and curator of İmalat-Hane that this area had once been destroyed by a massive fire in the 1910s, which erased many of the old wooden houses. The İMÇ complex was later built on that site —a modernist architectural structure strikingly similar to Sewoon Sangga in Seoul, both representing spaces born from industrialization. This historical and structural parallel made me feel a subtle yet undeniable connection between the two cities. In that sense, what began as a coincidence now feels almost inevitable — a continuation of the same flame across time and place.
Jihee KIM: Bringing this independent exhibition from Korea to Istanbul is not a relocation —it’s the movement of a flame. Placed in a different cultural landscape, the exhibition gains a new language. For me, it’s both dialogue and expansion.
10. FFFFIRE emerged around “marginal knots around an institutional center.” How do you see this idea reflecting broader questions about independence, collectivity, and visibility in contemporary art?
Describing FFFFIRE as "marginal knots around an institutional center" stems from my belief that vital artistic energy originates not from the center, but from the margins.
The margins experiment with questions that the center cannot or will not address, move at different speeds and in different ways from the center, and sometimes enjoy greater freedom than the center. Small solidarities formed outside official institutions, collaborations based on friendship, experimental attempts—these marginal knots create creativity and autonomy that institutions easily overlook.
Having worked for over ten years at public art institutions, including the Gwangju Museum of Art (GMA) and the Asia Culture Center (ACC), I have directly experienced both the strengths and limitations of institutional structures. Today's art institutions guarantee stability, visibility, and resources, but simultaneously become trapped in bureaucratic procedures and inertia. Groundbreaking experimentation or radical attempts are not easily realized within institutions. Conversely, the margins have the freedom to attempt new possibilities without institutional approval or validation, with relatively less fear of failure.
However, FFFFIRE is not a completely independent guerrilla exhibition. In Gwangju, we strategically utilized the Biennale period with support from ARKO (Arts Council Korea), and in Istanbul, we realized the exhibition as an international touring show with support from KOFICE (Korea Foundation for International Cultural Exchange). In reality, we exist between institution and independence. Rather than completely rejecting institutions or absolutizing independence, we are exploring the tensions and various possibilities between them.
What I want to emphasize is this: the small embers at the margins hold potential—this is the position FFFFIRE seeks to practice. I believe continued support for such marginal attempts is essential going forward.
Rae KOO: For me, the idea of “marginal knots around an institutional center” speaks to the invisible networks that sustain art but often remain unacknowledged — the emotional, sonic, and collective energies that exist beyond the visible frame of institutions. Independence, in this sense, is not about isolation but about forming temporary constellations of people, spaces, and ideas that vibrate together outside the center’s logic. I think the question is not how to be seen within the system, but how to create new forms of resonance that make the periphery itself a site of meaning. My own practice — working with inaudible sound, data, and spatial perception —relates to this idea. I’m interested in how something can remain unseen yet still affect the world, much like a sound wave or a quiet collaboration that continues beneath the surface.
Jihee KIM: This exhibition was not ignited at the institutional center, but at the unseen margins. Just as fire first catches at the edges, meaningful change often begins not on the official stage, but in unnoticed places. Rather than moving toward the center, we turned our attention to what had been left behind— the remnants, the discarded materials, the voices that had not been given space. FFFFIRE became a moment where small sparks, each burning independently, recognized one another in the dark.
11. What do you hope audiences in Istanbul will take away from the exhibition? Is there a particular feeling or thought you wish to ignite in them?
Fire is always moving, traveling anywhere. Across cultures and eras, it carries multiple meanings—transformation and regeneration, truth and reason, energy and vitality, purification and sacrifice, the sacred and the pure, labor and technology, passion and desire, destruction and danger. All these meanings coexist within fire.
In the Gwangju version, we structured fire's multiple dimensions along four axes: from the massive fireball of the sun to invisible inner heat, from prehistoric first sparks to the thermodynamic acceleration of the Anthropocene, from communal bonfires to fire as disaster, from visual fire to sonic fire and the scars left as its traces.
Human history is essentially a "history of heat." From the discovery of fire in the Neolithic age through the Scientific Revolution, Industrial Revolution, and Nuclear Revolution, every revolution was ultimately a thermodynamic revolution. As the saying goes, "those who prospered by fire shall perish by fire"—humanity now faces the consequences of excessive heat: global warming, wildfires, and climate instability. Now is the time to reflect anew on the meaning of fire.
Like the parable of the burning house from the Buddhist Lotus Sutra, we may be in crisis now without fully recognizing it. However, what this exhibition seeks to ignite is not fear or despair, but rather the possibility of transformation. Fire consumes everything, yet new life can emerge from ashes. Extinction and regeneration are one process; endings can be beginnings—this is the thought I wish to share with Istanbul's audience.
Rae KOO: I don’t expect the audience to understand the work in a rational way — I hope they feel it first. The exhibition is about sensing what cannot be seen or clearly defined: the quiet tension beneath climate change, the subtle vibration of energy, the fragility of being. If something ignites, I wish it to be a moment of awareness — not a loud realization, but a slow, resonant one. I want the audience to recognize that even invisible forces — sound waves, emotions, heat, memory — are constantly shaping our shared reality. In that awareness, maybe they can sense the thin, trembling line that connects us all.
Jihee KIM: I don't hope for understanding — I hope for resonance. If the work whispers to someone, even quietly, that is enough.
Youngnam KIM: I believe that once an artist creates a work and it is exhibited in a gallery, all works leave the artist's hands. If the audience sees it that way, that is the answer. Interpretation is the audience's responsibility, so the audience doesn't necessarily need to see the work as the artist intended. Of course, the artist has intentions when creating the work and can guide the audience by providing some guidance, but compared to the time and space of the lives that the audience has lived, the artist is merely a small presence. The artist simply offers a small tremor (ripple) in the audience's heart. I hope that the audience will fill the empty spaces of the work with their own perspectives. However, looking back on preparing for this exhibition, this work was a time of 'emptying out' both physically and mentally through 'sambo-ilbae' (three steps and one bow). The words of an artist come to mind. Was it Nam June Paik who said it? "Time without content." On the surface, we live in an excess of "time with content." I think that's what makes life difficult for people. In living, we need an 'internal flash (light)' in our mind, body, and heart. I believe that sometimes a flame must rise to intensely break down, burn, and empty things out. (For reference, although 'sambo-ilbae' began as a performance, it ultimately became a process of practice(spiritual discipline). In the end, it was a journey to find myself. It seems it was a good decision to remain silent during the practice, except for scheduled breaks.)
12. Finally, could you share what’s next for you—and for FFFFIRE? Do you imagine this project continuing as a growing network or a series of evolving exhibitions?
FFFFIRE will continue its journey to India and Indonesia in 2026, but it will never be the same flame twice. The history and culture of each place, and above all, encounters with people there, will ignite new combustion.
Hyeyoung KU: I've always been drawn to narrative painting with details embedded throughout the composition, waiting to be discovered. <FFFFIRE> gave me the opportunity to fully realize this approach. There's a saying that when you unfurl a scroll, a universe unfolds. Moving forward, I want to work on even larger, longer scrolls—painting my world onto these expanding surfaces. The scroll format opens up possibilities I'm eager to continue exploring. I believe FFFFIRE can be fully expanded into diverse fire-related exhibitions according to the director's vision.
Rae KOO: For me, FFFFIRE doesn’t end with this exhibition — it’s an ongoing process, a network that keeps shifting and reigniting in different contexts. I see it less as a fixed format and more as an open field where artists, researchers, and audiences can continue to exchange energy and ideas. Personally, I plan to keep exploring the relationship between sound, data, and perception — how invisible forces shape our ecological and emotional realities. I hope FFFFIRE continues to evolve as a constellation of practices, each glowing differently but connected by the same warmth: a shared desire to sense, to listen, and to transform
Jihee KIM: I want to continue exploring lightness — not only material, but emotional and sensorial. If FFFFIRE continues, I hope to see the flame take new forms in new cities.
Thank you to Director Curator Gyeyeon Park and the participating artists for sharing their thoughts and energy.FFFFIRE reminds us that even a small spark can travel far — and still burn bright.
This interview was conducted via email between November 5th and November 9th.
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