This space presents installation works by artist duo Nana & Felix, who are based between Seoul
and Helsinki. Their practice explores the meaning of dwelling and the contemporary transformation
of tradition within rapidly shifting urban landscapes and social structures.
Their approach begins with walking, observing, and collecting—but here, “collecting” becomes a
creative act of visualizing the unconscious of the city and the desires embedded within its social
fabric.
The first work on view, Contemporary Suseok, reinterprets traditional Korean stone appreciation
through fragments of concrete and rebar salvaged from urban redevelopment sites. These
remnants of destruction are presented like natural scholar’s rocks, layering themes of loss,
development, and temporality. The work transforms our gaze—from contemplation rooted in nature
to the rhythms of consumption and discard embedded in urban life.
Another series, You Are Where You Live, features names of contemporary apartment brands in
Korea—such as “Lotte Castle,” “IPARK,” and “The Sharp”—rendered in the format of traditional
calligraphic scrolls. By embedding corporate branding within the dignified aesthetics of calligraphy,
the artists sharply expose the collision between modern housing desires and the authority of
tradition.
The final piece, Irworobong Apartment-Expressway Folding Screen, takes the format of a Joseon
dynasty court screen and reimagines it with images of Seoul’s apartment complexes and highways.
In this striking juxtaposition, tradition and modernity, power and everyday life are folded into one
landscape—revealing how the past is continually reassembled in the present.
For Nana & Felix, tradition is not a relic confined to museums, but a living language—malleable,
responsive, and ever in dialogue with contemporary conditions. By borrowing traditional forms and
confronting them with the sensibility of the modern city, their work questions the boundaries
between past and present, migration and settlement.