Selected Exhibition and Research Projects
Reimagining Places: Land, Store, Home (2022)
Exhibition curated by Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon and Hong Kal
Korea Culture Center, Ottawa, ON Canada [Link]
April–June 2023
Participating artists: Jin-me Yoon, Diana Yoo, Yoon Jin Jung
Related program: ROM Connects (Un)Settling Diaspora: Decolonizing Diasporic Depictions in Korean Canadian Art and Literature Tuesday, October 17, 2023, 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm EDT
Conversation with Dr. Christine Kim (UBC) and artist Diana Yoo (York University)
The Vaccine Archives
(2015–2021)
A research creation project on the visual culture of vaccines.
The Vaccine Archives project explores both individual and collective memories of vaccination across geographic borders.
The project was displayed as an archival and art display at the group exhibition, Immune Nations, curated by Dr. Natalie Loveless
Memories and Records: The Vaccine Archive (2016)
Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon, in collaboration with Lathika Sritharan (MPH) and Morgan Wedderspoon (MFA)
Displayed at Galleri KiT, Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, Norway (2016), and UNAIDS, Geneva, Switzerland (2016)
Travelling Memories: The Vaccine Archive (2021)
A set of 24 postcards.
Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon, in collaboration with Hwirin and Sergio Serrano. Displayed at McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, ON (2011)
Image credit:
Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon, Travelling Memories: The Vaccine Archive (2021), one of a set of 24 postcards created based on the archival collection and interviews of memories of vaccination. In collaboration with Hwirin and Sergio Serrano © Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon 2021
For more about the project, see Immune Nations.
(2015–2021)
Galleri KiT, Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, Norway
March 13–24, 2017
UNAIDS, Geneva, Switzerland
May 23–June 30, 2017
McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, ON Canada
September 14–December 10, 2021
Curated by Dr. Natalie Loveless
Principal Investigators: Dr. Steven Hoffman (Global Strategy Lab, York University), Dr. Natalie Loveless and Professor Sean Caulfield (University of Alberta)
Project manager: Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon
A Speculative exhibition about the constructive role that art can play in global political discourse around life-saving vaccines. This exhibit is outcome of a 3.5-year interdisciplinary research-creation project, The Vaccine Project.
Featured artists & scholars:
Jesper Alvær, Julia Belluz, Sean Caulfield, Patrick Fafard, Caitlin Fisher, Steven Hoffman, Johan Holst, Annemarie Hou, Alison Humphrey, Kaisu Koski, Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon, Patrick Mahon, Lathika Sritharan, Mkrtich Tonoyan, and Rachelle Viader Knowles.
Poster designed by Sergio Serrano
Image © Sergio Serrano and The Vaccine Project
The <Immune Nations> exhibition was created with generous support from the Research Council of Norway, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Killam Cornerstone Grant of Canada, the Global Strategy Lab of the University of Ottawa, the Faculty of Arts of the University of Alberta, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, and UNAIDS.
For more information, see Immune Nations.
(2020–2022)
Research Assistant for Dr. Sheena Wilson and Dr. Natalie Loveless, University of Alberta, for Just Powers's two interdisciplinary research projects: Speculative Energy Futures and iDoc.
Based at the University of Alberta on Treaty Six Territory, with partners from across Canada, Just Powers is an interdisciplinary and community-engaged network of research projects focused on climate justice issues. Just Powers and its researchers are focused on creating socially-just approaches to energy transition and more livable futures for all.
Speculative Energy Futures uses arts-based practices to imagine alternative futures. We bring together scholarly inquiry and creative processes to explore diverse perspectives on the topic of energy transition, so we can re-imagine energy futures beyond what we currently understand to be possible.
I worked for Speculative Energy Futures as a former project manager.
iDoc is an intermedia documentary project tracking energy-transition research, discussions, and developments in Alberta, Canada, and beyond. In a series of over 100 interviews with scholars, policy makers, activists, and community members, iDoc records, archives and shares ideas and conversations about current and future energy systems.
I collated iDoc database for public release on Aviary – University of Alberta's audiovisual digital curation platform that allows for controlled access to streaming video and audio files and their associated transcripts and indexes. In 2022 the entire iDoc project will find its archival home at the University of Alberta Library. The archive will be open-access and available to all.
For more information, see Just Powers.
Designing Connection in Friction
Harcourt House Artist Run Centre
The Main Gallery
September 20–30, 2018
Opening Reception: Friday, September 21 7:00 pm–10:00 pm.
Curator’s and Artist’s Talk at 7:30 pm
Harcourt House Artist Run Centre
3rd floor, 10215 – 112 Street, Edmonton, AB Canada
Designing Connection in Friction presents recent research by artists who strive to create an artistic intervention in contact zones. Featuring three artists, Jesper Alvær (Oslo, Norway), Naureen Mumtaz (Edmonton, Alberta) and Bradley Necyk (St. Albert, Alberta), the exhibition aims to foster a connection between the sites of local and global contact zones and the viewers in Edmonton.
Curated by Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon and presented by the Art and Design Graduate Students’ Association (ADGSA) in conjunction with 2018 Design Week at Harcourt House Artist Run Centre.
Graphic by Phoebe Todd-Parrish
Mass and Individual: The Archive of the Guyanese Mass Games
Arko Art Center
3 Dongsung-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul
October 15–November 21, 2016
Co-curated by Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon and Wonseok Koh, this exhibition garnered the largest grant of the 2016 Arts Council of Korea Visual Art Exhibition Project Grant. The exhibition featured archive materials (photographs, films, books, artist drawings, newspaper etc.) from Guyana and 6 international contemporary artists’ multimedia works that explore collectivism and identity.
Featured artists:
Jungju An (Korea), Philbert Gajadhar (Guyana), Joonho Jeon (Korea), Yunjoo Kwak (Korea), Suntag Noh (Korea), Polit-Sheer-Form (China), George Simon (Guyana), and Diana Yoo (Canada)
Co-curators: Wonseok Koh and Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon
Exhibition coordinator: Hyunin Lee
Publication & Administration coordinator: Hanna Yoo
Promotion & Program coordinator: Ian Bahc
Poster designed by Dokho Shin
Image © Exhibition Mass and Individual: The Archive of the Guyanese Mass Games 2016
Mass Games: Nation-building Spectacles in Postcolonial Guyana and North Korea
University of Alberta Rutherford Library Atrium
April 15–June 24, 2016
Archive exhibition curated by Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon
"Shake That Mass Games!" (academic workshop with interdisciplinary scholars )
University of Alberta Rutherford Library
June 16, 2016
Image:
Above: Anonymous photographer, Untitled (photo of the 1990 Mass Games), 1990. Georgetown, Guyana.
Below: Anonymous artist(s), Untitled (Schematic Design of "Jaguar," 1987. Georgetown, Guyana
Repository: Allied Arts Unit, the Ministry of Education, Guyana.
The original photographs and paintings belong to the Secretariat of Mass Games & Allied Arts Unit, the Ministry of Education, Guyana. The images were digitized by the generous support of Asia Culture Center (ACC) Gwangju, Korea, through its guest research program (2015–2016). Principal Investigator: Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon
Between Among & Away
dc3 Art Projects
10567 – 111 Street
Edmonton, AB, Canada T5H 3E8
April 22–30, 2016
The 5th University of Alberta Art and Design Graduate Students’ Association (ADGSA) annual juried exhibition.
Featured artists:
Amanda Graham, Emily Geen, Jay Havens, Amanda Jones, Angela Marino, Bronwyn McMillin, Morgan Melenka, Marzieh, Mosavarzadeh, Genevieve Robertson & Jay White, Sergio Rojas, Sergio Serrano, Kirsty Templeton Davidge, Tennis Club, and Still in Edmonton
I participated in Between Among & Away as a juror and exhibition coordinator.
Poster designed by Travis Holmes
Digital image © Travis Holmes and the ADGSA
Conversations with Curators
2013–2014
University of Toronto Art Center (UTAC), currently Art Museum at the University of Toronto
https://artmuseum.utoronto.ca/
A monthly series of lively discussions between senior curators and emerging curators
Program Committee: Vicki Sung-yeon Kwon, Marsya Mariana, and Renée van der Avoird