Art Exhibit "Shared Dialogue, Shared Space" Hosted by Korea Art Forum

Korea Art Forum (KAF) will present "Shared Dialogue, Shared Space" (SDSS), a series of one-day interactive art initiatives presented for free in NYC Parks. The final in-person event in the KAF SDSS spring program takes place in Flushing, Queens on Saturday, May 14 from 12-4PM at Maple Playground. For the past three years, SDSS programs have connected immigrant communities and underserved ethnic enclaves to visual arts and culture through language access and participatory art activities. The activities have been offered to populations with limited English proficiency free of charge with translation services in English, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish at local parks embedded in the community.

On Saturday, May 14, 2022, from 12-4PM, Building Together, curated by Heng-Gil Han, featuring artists Cody Herrmann, David Younghwan Lee, Lily & Honglei, and Eunhae Park will lead audiences through programs that challenge dominant worldviews while referencing life in Flushing and the immigrant experience.

Events will take place at the Kissena Boulevard entrance of Maple Playground, between Maple Avenue and Franklin Avenue on Kissena Boulevard. Artists’ creative activities include augmented reality experienced on participants' smart phones, drawing workshops, participatory sculpture, and printed comics, all of which address immigrant experiences, competition and contradictions, exploitation of others and natural resources, and racial and social injustices subjugating people of color.

The full 2022 Spring SDSS program, which incorporated in-person events at local parks in both Inwood, Manhattan, and Flushing, Queens, will conclude with a livestreamed curatorial talk on Zoom, Facebook, and YouTube on June 16 from 7-8PM, and a quadrilingual catalogue including artist interviews and curatorial essays to be published later this summer. For updates check www.kafny.org, or email hhan@kafny.org.

Since 2020, Shared Dialogue, Shared Space has broadened channels of communication between the contemporary art world and immigrant communities in New York City, advancing the artists’ creative endeavors of engaging the public. Focused on the expansion of public access to the artists’ creative work, the project fosters dialogues between the audience and artists, exploring a wide range of subject matters and the multidimensional role of art in the processes of cultural production and social change.

Shared Dialogue, Shared Space will include two programs: (1) Building Together at Maple Playground in Flushing on Saturday, May 14, 2022, 12-4PM (rain date on June 11) curated by Heng-Gil Han featuring artists Cody Herrmann, David Younghwan Lee, Lily & Honglei, and Eunhae Park; and, Virtual Curator Talk on Zoom and/or Facebook Live, Thursday, June 16, 2022, 7-8PM, a conversation between the curators organizing the 2022 Shared Dialogue, Shared Space program to gain a deeper understanding of their visions for art and culture in NYC.

Founded in New York 2013, Korea Art Forum (KAF) is led by artists, scholars, and peacemakers committed to bridging the world through art, serving to advance indispensable values of art’s connectivity, relevance, and equity to create a peaceful world and enhance people’s quality of life and well-being. KAF’s goals are to stem root causes of inequality found in the contemporary art field and promote an eco-human-centric framework of art as a social product of public engagement that enables the creation of a peaceful world of coexistence, cooperation, and shared prosperity. Operating at the intersection of the visual arts and humanities, KAF annually produces interrelated projects—Commissions, Exhibitions, Forums, and Publications—to bring together all people from the art world and beyond to share dialogues, serving to build an interconnected peaceful world and support inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility.

Korea Art Forum (KAF) is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. KAF’s programs are supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council, and are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. WQXR is the media partner of Korea Art Forum presenting Shared Dialogue, Shared Space.