Audio Visual Pavilion is pleased to host Drift Bottle, a duo show by Eugene Jung and Taiyo Kobayashi. In this exhibition the two artists take roles as both curators and collaborators. The two will present their new works based on a conversation that began in 2019. ‘Drift bottle’ with unclear recipients goes beyond a single motif for the two young artists each from Korea and Japan. It is an inevitable means of connection to the current situation where they are unable to go meet each other by plane. According to their research, drift bottles originated from Ancient Greece to measure ocean currents and are often found in Japan. They write, “In 18th century Japan, a ship carrying a man named Matsuyama Chunosuke was swept away by a storm. A message from the stranded sailors washed ashore 150 years later and was released to the world.”
 
The two artists met in Japan in March 2019. Taiyo Kobayashi ran exhibition spaces ‘Chuohonsen Gallery’ and ‘The Site of Chouhonsen Gallery’ in Nishi-Ogikubo, Tokyo, Japan. Having learned Japanese a few years prior, Jung suggested to Kobayashi to join the exhibition in Seoul. The two talked about ‘disasters’ such as the Chernobyl nuclear accident and Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami which Jung visited and created works about. The two named them as ‘disasters they had not experienced in person’ although occured in near time. Communicating in Japanese they decided to present this as an exhibition.
 
The dialogue between the two artists on creating works about the disasters of others / other places, which they had not experienced, transformed into a ‘site’ in the pandemic situation in 2020. For Drift Bottle Jung turns the exhibition space into a funeral and applies ‘dummy data’ as a material, as well as her own installation work that functions as an office. The crashed data and incomplete images on her personal laptop are converted into a sculptural installation Funeral of Eugeene95’s Macbook Pro (2021) and released to the world. The artist produces visitors’ sedentary movement while maintaining the office-type exhibition space of Audio Visual Pavilion. Taiyo Kobayashi seeks ways of contact among individuals (his peers) and cities through his previous work I Always Have a Feeling From You (2019) and new work Dear Nurebutsu, the Statue of Buddha (2021). The place Kobayashi is looking for is the coast of Ishinomaki, where a statue of Buddha which went missing due to the tsunami used to be located. According to the artist, the name of the Buddha is Norebutsu, and it once disappeared while being transported on a ship from Kyoto to Ishinomaki then suddenly reappeared.
 
Their plan to visit each other in Korean and Japan has fallen through. The intersection the two artists create deals with things that are intangible but still in front us.
 
Audio Visual Pavilion Lab
(Translated by Sooj Heo)
 
* Ishinomaki is a city located at the mouth of the Kitakami River in eastern Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. Ishinomaki was seriously affected by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Approximately 46% of the city was inundated by the tsunami.