Presenter Interview プレゼンターインタビュー
ソウルのニューウェーブの拠点
文來(ムンレ)芸術工場
Korea
Mullae Arts Village,
a base for artists of Seoul’s ‘new wave’
Suh Myung-Gu
In 2008, the Republic of Korea’s capital of Seoul launched a program called “Seoul Art Space” with the purpose of renovating public facilities and sites such as unused factory buildings in the city for use as community bases for the arts and culture. Today there are 11 Seoul Art Space facilities, nine of which are operated directly by the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture. Among these art spaces, the center of much attention today is the Mullae Arts Village, which was opened in 2010 at Mullaedong 3-ga in the Yeongdeoungpo district of Seoul. Mullaedong was traditionally an industrial center of ironworks factories that formed the foundation of the country’s iron/steel industry. In recent years the area was renovated with business areas and apartment complexes, and artists had come to use the remaining small workshops as studios, which naturally gave birth to a “Mullae arts village.” Then, with the support of the Seoul arts Space program, today’s Mullae Arts Village was founded for the purpose of supporting the artists’ activities. In this interview we speak with the manager of Mullae Arts Village, Suh Myung-Gu, who hopes to make it a next-generation arts support base where artists and the local community come together to generate new arts and culture in the spirit of the City of Seoul’s program mission.
Interviewer: Noriko Kimura (Seoul-based performing arts coordinator, translator)