Blog | Smart City

In the South Korean metropole of Seoul, queer people have been increasingly pushing their way into the public sphere for more than two decades. The Seoul Queer Culture Festival, for example, has made it to the forecourt of the city hall against quite a bit of resistance, and the first neighborhood pride event took place in the Mapo district in 2022. Sung Un Gang, a member of subproject B03, is interested in such space-appropriating changes in the LGBTQ movement. He is not only interested in already well-documented processes, but also in how queer people create new spaces and recode old ones through quite mundane everyday actions.

"Ich bin die 'Fremde', die 'heute kommt und morgen bleibt.' (Simmel, 1992: 764). In Zeiten der Corona-Krise fühle ich mich als Südkoreanerin in Deutschland noch fremder, doch gleichzeitig fühle ich mich als in Deutschland lebende Südkoreanerin auch fremd, wenn ich mit meinen Freunden in Korea kommuniziere." Kayoon Kim berichtet über den unterschiedlichen Umgang mit Corona in Südkorea und Deutschland.

Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2019 has been commenced on the 7th of September with the official title “Collective City”. It consists of multiple exhibits grouped within five different platforms: Thematic Exhibition, Cities Exhibition, Public Programs, Live Projects and Global Studio, each of which represents a variety of urban planning projects from around the world. The aim is to create a space for communication and engagement of the public in the development of their cities. New collective phenomena and strategies of participation in the socio-urban dynamics of the city are presented.