Reading Writing Speaking

As an archiving project, SeMA EXHIBITION ARCHIVE 1988-2016: READING WRITING SPEAKING, selectively focuses on SeMA’s exhibitions since its opening in 1988. The exhibition, along with the collection, plays a significant role in establishing the museum’s identity and demonstrating its direction. This exhibition explores the dynamics of the institution and its exhibitions which is as much about the shifts in the concept and form of exhibitions as it is about the changes in the museum’s policy and role during different phases.
A select use of resources from past exhibitions is the pivot on which this exhibition turns as it demonstrates the transitions of SeMA according to the demands of each period. The exhibition categorized by period and exhibition-type suggests as a whole a grand or metanarrative of the museum. Yoon Jeewon and Sasa [44] and The Third Readers, a temporary group for this project – Kim Hak-Lyang, Joungmin Yi, Seewon Hyun – intervene in the museum’s narrative by supplementing the ‘missing or excluded parts’ as well as reinterpreting it in different ways. Such design is an attempt to view the history of SeMA from diverse dimensions.
When audiences choose to take the initiative, the history of the museum can be read, written, and spoken in various ways instead of being fixed into a closed narrative. This exhibition expects to be a productive field in which to imagine and discuss the significance and function of the museum as well as new directions through our engagement with it.