2023 ACC CONTEXT Walking, Wandering

Goeun Park

〈A Map of Written Sound 〉, 2023.

Interactive, projection mapping, color, silent, dimensions variable.
Commissioned by Asia Culture Center.

Goeun Park works with graphic design to visualize research-based data with an interest in cities and architecture. She asks the origin of the names that are used to distinguish spaces around us from other spaces. In the A Map of Written Sound, the artist restores the names of old places and roads that are lost or forgotten in Gwangju. People in the old days saw Seoseokdae on Mudeungsan Mountain and called Gwangju “Mudol (a compound word of water and stone),” which means “stones flowing down like water.” This story suggests that there were many cases where the surrounding landscape of an area was often translated into language to become the original name of a specific place. The old original geographical names, which were passed down orally, were written in Chinese characters rather than in Korean alphabet, and are called in names that are completely differently today from their original word sounds.
The artist collects forgotten names of places and streets, and revives the old vanished names on current map coordinates. Whenever objets with unfamiliar words are transported by the visitor, a map is shown on the screen, telling stories and traces of the past capturing the name that might feel unfamiliar even to the residents of Gwangju today. Walking on a map, which signifies the translation of geographical names that reflect regional and social changes to lines and planes, makes it possible to access the rich weavings of the narratives of a city.