MaytoDay

Commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Democratization Movement, MaytoDay is a project that researches into artworks on the May 18 Democratization Movement presented at Gwanjgu Biennale. As the project title implies, MaytoDay aims to draw attention to the lasting effects, everydayness, and micro-histories of the May 18 spirit, and seeks to situate the discourse amid us living today. Examining the 25 years of Gwangju Biennale’s history and archives in current perspective, MaytoDay attempts to connect other region and other countries’ democratization movements through exhibitions.

MaytoDay explores the legacies of May 18 as it continues to affect and move us today across borders. It is also an opportunity to spread its meaning and significance to overseas regions that share similar experiences of civil and political history with South Korea. Comprised of a series of exhibitions curated in Seoul and Taipei to Cologne and Buenos Aires, this Gwangju edition of MaytoDay reorganizes those four exhibitions, with each countries’ historical and political experiences in dialogue with Gwangju.

In May, Chien-hung Huang curated May Co-sensus: Demo-stream in Democracy at Taipei’s Kuandu Museum of Fine Art. With ‘co-sensus’ and ‘stream’ as keywords, the exhibition re-examined Korea and Taiwan’s democratization movements by connecting them to Hong Kong’s current situation. Spring of Democracy curated by Ute Meta Bauer in Seoul, revisited how participating artists at previous Gwangju Biennales have

addressed the movement. by juxtaposing artworks with archival materials. Opened in July at Cologne Gwangju Lessons curated by Binna Choi, presented works inspired by the People’s Art School (1983–late 1980s) in Gwangju, together with the Dutch-Rwandan artist Christian Nyamepta. Opening in 2021 due to COVID-19, Myths of the Near Future co-curated by

Sofía Dourron and Javier Villa in Buenos Aires focuses on what Argentinean and South Korean histories share: traumas caused by state violence and resistance strategies by women. Centering around the exhibition at the Asia Culture Center, MaytoDay hopes to inspire and mobilize comparative understandings of the diverse histories of democracy and democratization.

In addition, works produced in 2018 and 2020 as part of the Gwangju Biennale Commission (GB Commission) are on view at the Asia Culture Center and the former Armed Forces’ Gwangju Hospital. Alongside MaytoDay, a special exhibition project Woodcut Prints in the 1980s: A Testimony of Resistance, A Memory of Movement, curated by Jinha Kim, is also staged at Mugak Temple’s Lotus Gallery.