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Busan Museum of Contemporary Art to Hold Permanent Collection Exhibition “Collection Island: Choi Chansook – Myitkyina”

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The Busan Museum of Contemporary Art (hereafter “the Museum”) announced that it is currently holding its permanent collection exhibition, Collection Island: Choi Chansook – Myitkyina, through June 29.

The “Collection Island” series, first introduced in September 2023, is a permanent exhibition highlighting works from the Museum’s collection. The name was inspired by the Museum’s location on Eulsukdo Island, and the exhibition features carefully curated works that have been acquired since the Museum’s opening.

This year’s first installation in the series, Myitkyina by Choi Chansook, was curated in commemoration of the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule. It aims to provoke reflection on historical significance and social issues. The exhibition includes a two-channel video installation, as well as archival materials provided by Professor Chung Jin-sung’s research team at Seoul National University.

Myitkyina (밋찌나) deals with the stories of Korean women who were forcibly mobilized as Japanese military “comfort women” and sent from Busan to the Myitkyina region of present-day Myanmar during World War II. The work features three fictional women, all named “Myitkyina,” whose lives reflect different political and diplomatic realities, symbolizing imperial Japan, patriarchal Korean nationalism, and feminism, respectively.

Through conflicting and ambiguous narratives, the work raises critical questions about the possibility of representing any one person’s experience as a single, objective truth.

An online artist talk with Choi Chansook will be held via Zoom on April 18 at 5 p.m. Those interested may reserve their spot through the city's integrated reservation system (reserve.busan.go.kr).

This program offers the public an opportunity to engage directly with the Berlin-based artist and to gain deeper insight into the themes and intentions of the exhibition.

More information can be found on the Museum’s official website (www.busan.go.kr/moca), or by contacting the Museum’s Curatorial Office at 051-220-7344.

Choi Chansook has been active between Korea and Germany since 2013, developing her unique visual language based on themes of migration and mobility. Her work spans exhibitions, performances, lectures, lecture-performances, and publications, often utilizing interdisciplinary methods. In 2021, she was honored as “Artist of the Year” by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.

As an artist who identifies as both an outsider and a boundary dweller, Choi continues to explore the themes of physical movement and psychological migration in her ongoing artistic research.

Kang Seung-wan, Director of the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, stated,

“We hope this first ‘Collection Island’ exhibition of the year, Myitkyina by Choi Chansook, will serve as a catalyst for renewed awareness and reflection through its contemporary reimagining of historical events.”