The historic community of Baedari in the old city of East Incheon is an ongoing battle ground for the marginalized urban underclass against the urban growth machine of contemporary capitalism. Having stopped the completion of a major highway that destroyed much of its community, Baedari’s resistance through "co-immunization", "making-with" and "love" raises urgent questions about our future between the post-Anthropocene and neo-Holocene life.
Inspired by Arata Isozaki’s 1968 exhibition Electric Labyrinth, where the direction of architecture is questioned relative to the ruins of the future, RFFR visually and statistically presents the simulacra of Incheon’s economic growth and the extent of its environmental and economic exploitations through land reclamation and planned obsolescence. With the original shorelines returning with rising sea levels, RFFR projects the inevitable demise of the Human-bound and the imminence of the Earth-bound ways. The installation includes two panoramic but fragmented paintings by local artists that depict the violence of the present and the sea-bound future that progress entails for Incheon.
Exhibition is open May 20 – Nov 26, 2023
at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 Korean Pavilion, Giardini, Venezia