CHUNGCHEONGBUK-DO < invest Korea

According to Yonhap News,

(CHEONGJU=Yonhap News) An international craft festival is to open here next month featuring more than 4,000 craftworks by hundreds of Korean and foreign artists, organizers for the event said Monday.

The 2017 Cheongju International Craft Biennale, the 10th of its kind, will begin at an old tobacco processing factory on Sept. 13 and run till until Oct. 22 under the theme of "Hands+ Embrace."

This year's theme was chosen to "evoke human imagination and to find coexisting denominators to communicate with the general public" as crafts meet new genres and technologies, although it began as a utility object, the biennale's website said, noting, "Moreover, it expands its role as a means to heal human temperaments."

The main exhibition will be held on the second floor of the biennale venue to "introduce crafts to the public who think crafts are difficult to understand," the website said. "Also, members of various local culture and art scenes such as performance, literature, and music will participate in the event to blend different genres of art."

About 170 artworks by 49 artists from South Korea, the United States, Britain, France and China will be displayed at the main exhibition in four categories such as universe, time, aesthetic relationship and embrace.

The Global Pavilion on the third floor will showcase 603 craftworks made by more than 300 artists from nine countries "not only to present exhibitions that are moving forward to the future of art crafts but also to present the history of art crafts of each country," according to the website.

"The purposes of exhibitions are to discuss how each different future craft affects human beings and to investigate how studies, skills and materials of art crafts are changing as the age transforms."

Also to be displayed on the third floor are craft and art fairs which have served as the most representative art markets in South Korea where people buy and sell quality crafts and works of art.

The biennale will also present a series of symposiums and workshops under the titles of "The Biennale of Yesterday," "The Future of Craft in the time of the Integration of Art, Science, Technology and Information," "Craft, So into You," "The Creators' Craft from Everyday Culture" and "My Craft Participants."

In addition, the biennale will showcase the "Cheongju Digital Craft Lab," an education program to let people know how to blend science, technology, design and craft. The program will permit participants to experiment with their individual imagination using such gadgets as LED lights, microcontrollers, sensors, 3D scanning and 3D printing under the theme of "Do It With Others (DIWO)" rather than "Do It Yourself (DIY)."

hdh@yna.co.kr

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