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TNG: So who’s done most of the work on the walls?
Jan: Most of what you see is kind of immediate work. Things happen when people are here to drink or to party. What I was looking for originally was for people to bring stuff from their studio and keep it here. I thought something would come out of the piling of work. It’s hard because it’s such a short time and often we have to explain everything from scratch.
Erlend: But having to explain everything over and over kind of forced us to formulate things again and again because we came here with at best a half-planned project. To me, that’s been really interesting. Formulating it again and again in different constellations has started to blur the original idea.
Power: I think what’s been important is that we, as a group, have gotten along and when people come here and see us talking and laughing they feel more comfortable. If that weren’t the case I’m not sure how smooth the collaboration would have been. I think that has served to battle skepticism about the project because we are such a great group. I’ve been through a lot of other ‘flat structure’ projects in other countries and it’s been hell.
TNG: Why do you think it’s been different being here? How is it unique to be in Seoul?
Power: The group. Nothing else.
TNG: So the place hasn’t really mattered.
Erlend: Well, I think it was just a lucky coincidence that the four of us function so well together. We all didn’t know each other before this project.
Jan: It’s like when you share a flat. You might do it with your friends, or you might do it with people you don’t know to make it fresher.
TNG: If someone says “Korean Art” does that mean anything to you?
All: No
Jan: Well, there are a number of famous Korean artists internationally. I think contemporary art is not really a new thing to Korean culture. They’ve been teaching it for a fairly long time. The Chinese phenomenon is newer. They learned about it very recently.
Power: Well, take for example the black and yellow in that painting over there. For Koreans, those colors are associated with danger, but for us, as Westerners, it doesn’t have quite the same meaning. It comes from the 80’s during protests and rallies in Korea. So of course there are some things that I can’t see as a Swede. But that doesn’t make it "Korean art". It’s just something that I couldn’t get immediately. There are different meanings for different countries, but that’s natural.
Jan: I think art has been global for a long time now. A lot of Westerners forget about Korean art when they talk about the Asian phenomenon. There’s so much about the China thing.