First lady Kim Jung-sook on May 26 tries separating and disposing of plastic bottles with two elementary school students at “Tong’s Vintage: The Strange Tongui General Store,” a special exhibition of the Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 (P4G) Seoul Summit, after looking around the event. (Cheong Wa Dae’s Facebook page)
By Lee Jihae and Park Hye Ri
First lady Kim Jung-sook on May 26 visited Daelim Museum in Seoul’s Jongno-gu District to see a special exhibition of the Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals 2030 (P4G) Seoul Summit.
She wore a Hanbok (traditional attire) dress made from old Hanbok skirts, carried a purse made of discarded leather from a car and rode the eco-friendly hydrogen car Nexo to the exhibition.
Accompanied by two elementary school students, the first lady commended the young artists whose works were displayed at the exhibition for finding value in discarded items such as masks and plastics.
The exhibition commemorates Korea’s hosting of its first multilateral summit on the environment, the P4G summit.
Titled “Tong’s Vintage: The Strange Tongui General Store,” the event features the works of 23 young artist teams who used as materials things thrown away in daily life.
An interesting part of the exhibition shows how the teams transformed items such as furniture, small daily consumables, discarded plastics and the hard-to-recycle glass into art.
Materials that saw a rebirth through the works include COVID-19 masks thrown away in the manufacturing process and those deemed defective.
Another work featuring furniture made of plastic discarded during the production of bus grips, staircase handrails and steel pipes was made in collaboration with the factories producing the items. Fifty tons of such plastic are thrown away every year.
The exhibition is organized in the order of the slowness of a material’s decomposition speed: glass, plastic, steel, fabric, wood, paper and eco-friendly materials.
Ending on July 25, the event offers free admission but online reservations are required.
The process of making Ryu Jong Dae’s “art furniture” involved completely dehydrating corn, solidifying the starch and using 3D printing. (Kim Sunjoo)
This piece by Kim Haneul had discarded masks used to make chairs. (Kim Sunjoo)
This work by Seo Jeong-ha seeks to inspire people to pass down toys to future generations instead of throwing them away. (Kim Sunjoo)
jihlee08@korea.kr
