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FLUX-CITIES

long grass with houses in the background

Each chapter in the video marks a different location that has been impacted by an uneasy relationship between development and community well-being. 

The videos that are shown as part of this project look specifically to Taiwan and various Canadian cities. In the images of Taiwan, Chun focuses on the failure of capitalism and modernism by showing abandoned living spaces. Canadian neighbourhoods, including Regent Park, similarly express the political and economic tensions that threaten local subsistence and social health. 

Chun intervenes specifically in the images of Taiwan through drawings, or a kind of digital graffiti, that seem to offer an attempt at re-claiming these spaces for further consideration. The hand-held quality of the videos also seems to serve a specific purpose of rejecting all-too- common overly aestheticized and fetishistic images of ruin and decay. 

By bringing together such far-reaching examples of urban and architectural uncertainty, the project asks that we take stock of the prevalence of such issues on a global scale.

soJin Chun is a Toronto-based artist working in video and installation. While telling narratives that emerge in-between cultures, Chun works in local communities in which she has strong personal affiliations. Chun is inspired by her diasporic experience as a Korean-born woman who has been an immigrant in Bolivia and Canada. 

Chun has participated in artist residencies in Brazil, Canada, Bolivia and Serbia. Through participatory residencies, Chun has developed a collaborative art practice to investigate local narratives of political struggles in Latin America looking at communities fighting to overcome the effects of colonization and globalization. 

Chun has participated in video screening and exhibitions in Bolivia, Brazil, France, Sweden, Germany, Spain, South Africa, Taiwan and the United States. Her video works are represented by GIV (Montreal), CFMDC (Toronto) and V-Tape (Toronto). Chun has a B.A. in Applied Arts from Ryerson University and a Masters in Communications and Culture from Ryerson/York Universities.

This installation is presented as part of ‘Public Volumes’, a large-scale project taking place across the Small Arms Inspection Building, Bradley Museum and the Great Hall at Mississauga Civic Centre.

Multiple day event Apr 6 - May 5, 2019