Guide book for Spring of Democracy&A Project Organized in Commemoration of the May 18 Democratization Movement
Today, 40 years after May of 1980, the project Spring of Democracy provides a hindsight at the trajectory of the Gwangju spirit and sheds light on the democratization movement in the language of contemporary art. The project, under the name MaytoDay, takes place in Taipei, Seoul, Buenos Aires, Cologne, Gwangju, and finally in Venice. It communicates the memories of Gwangju and the spirit of democracy that are both still very much valid today. The Spring of Democracy, which is held at the Art Sonje Center, invites 26 individuals and teams formed of artists and researchers from five different countries. Their works invite the audience to reach beyond simply watching the exhibition to more deeply contemplate the contemporary meaning of democracy. We created a collage of documentary photographs taken during the 1980 Gwangju Democratization Movement and the current works presented in the Spring Exhibition of Democracy. We thereby tried to visualize the hidden meaning and value of the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement from today’s rapidly changing sociocultural perspective.