Project
Our project, called “[TEN] HOPE”, is an interactive exhibition to show eight artists’ + two participatory art's intercultural views of 'hope' from diverse backgrounds in three different themes: cultural integration, world issues, and new art. We hope to reflect the pathway of 4482's past ten years of exhibitions. The project will work with ten emerging/mid-career artists to present hopes through the lens of their artworks using various materials and methods under the three major themes mentioned above. The exhibition has been a big part of 4482 as it has been a platform for 300+ Korean artists in the UK where we provided opportunities for them to showcase the contemporary arts. This is our 10th annual exhibition where we now wish to embark a new vision of reaching out to a wider community of the emerging artists across the UK serving as a bridge between the UK (+44) and South Korea (+82). Due to recent global crises, we found the need to advocate for ‘hope’ through the medium of art to our public. The exhibition lasts for six days including artist talks, workshops, and networking events.
“[TEN] HOPE” exhibition is divided into three sections, and one of the sections is about climate change. One of the artists is Hanna ten Doornkaat who works with the theme of our environmental issues and will not only show the work but also open an artist talk session that can share her ideas about art and the environment and the public to understand the relationship between art and our environment, now can art help the environment. From the exhibition. We expect to express how vital art can change such issues as waste, energy and Climate Change.
The event is accessible to wider public as we plan to hold at Gallery @ OXO where hundreds of people pass by each day. We believe that a single art piece could convey a greater meaning. We would like to encourage and remind our public about ‘hopes’ that we can still have in the midst of global crises. Through the work of our eight artists + two participatory arts, we want to increase the awareness of global issues and how we have identified hopes in them through the works of our people around the world.
Due to the Covid pandemic, 4482 and our artists have also faced a considerable risk of encouraging each other to continue the art scene. It was an exceedingly tricky moment when all our 4482 artists had to move back to Korea or where their home was. We continued to connect with artists by organising online artist talk events throughout the pandemic.
Hence, for this “[TEN] HOPE” exhibition, we plan to re-engage artists with more opportunities to continue and express their works to be presented to the broader public. Nine artists were selected and invited to the exhibition; some had a continuous struggle to develop and sustain financially viable careers; others were seeking more international opportunities to continue their careers in the UK. As 4482 has a history of supporting Korean artists in the UK, our new vision and work is expected to help a broader range of artists including non-Korean. We would like to further serve as a bridge between two countries, UK and South Korea, to actively introduce artists from different cultural backgrounds or sectors by collaborating through such exhibitions like this. We’d also like to provide a space for those artists to work together to better understand what a career in the cultural sector or the wider creative industries could look like and to support everyone who embarks on such a career to remain in the sector and fulfil their potential, regardless of their background and situation.
Through this project, we hope to reach out to three main audiences: artists, art supporters, and the public. We have traditionally worked closely with numerous early career graduate Korean artists in the UK. We will continue reaching out to them to help develop experience in exhibitions, show their work outside the university as professional artists, and need help in public speech. Additionally, we want to further outreach to new early/mid-career artists in the UK.
About us
4482 is an intercultural non-profit organisation founded by a group of Korean artists in London. They found the need for emerging Korean artists who are based in the UK to increase the awareness of their artwork which was greatly influenced by their cultural heritage and the UK art education. We initially wanted to serve as a bridge for Korean artists to be represented in the UK as there were very limited opportunities for them as a minority/foreign group back in 2007. Since then, we have collaborated with 300+ Korean artists. Even the Korean Cultural Centre UK and the Korean Education Foundation have greatly supported our work. Due to the recent popularity of Korean culture, we have been contributing to the global art awareness via artist talks, exhibitions, and seminars.
Before Covid-19, we held a number of exhibitions at OXO Bargehouse since 2007 where we collaborated with 40-65 artists for each annual exhibition event.COVID-19 has greatly affected our work. We have encountered a new challenge of supporting artists as the majority of them left during the pandemic. Thus, we have developed a new vision of embracing a wider range of emerging artists that links to the UK/Korea. This project will serve as a turning point of our work whereby we serve as a two-way bridge by working with different artists and entities. One of the key things of this project is engaging broader background artists and audiences to different themes of the art world. We are not only supporting artists to create a work, but also to give them more opportunities to continue their work as part of society and to think creatively in a cross-cultural sense.
4482 consists of volunteers from various backgrounds. We have collaborated with different curators who are based in London. For this exhibition, we are notably working with a senior curator from Kingston Museum and an art advisor who specialises in Korean museums, heritage and arts. They will help to select ten artists that are able to reflect the message that we hope to convey. They will also continue to guide early-stage career artists as mentors.
We have traditionally partnered with a number of entities like Korean Cultural Centre UK, Korean Education Foundation, CHOI&CHOI Gallery, Hanmi Gallery, Soohoh Gallery, Maguro Group, and STORY iN DESIGN. As we hope to target wider art communities for the 2022 exhibition including non-Korean emerging artists, those entities are happy to continue their collaboration with us such as providing a space for exhibition and financial contribution. We are further targeting UK-based galleries and collectors to collaborate with us as we hope to provide more opportunities to the UK-based emerging artists from various cultural backgrounds to develop and increase their presence to the wider public.