BONGSU PARK

In 2019 she staged an immersive performance at London’s Coronet theatre entitled Dream Ritual which used dance, sound and text to create a highly emotive entry into this secret world.

Bongsu Park collects dreams, either from workshops or online, and these are then sold in an auction, thereby renewing this ancient tradition. However, it is very important to realise that the idea of buying a dream is not primarily a financial transaction but actually a far more intimate exchange.

These dreams are reproduced by the artist, on to elaborate highly decorative scrolls which serve to give the intangible and fragile dream a precious physical entity.

The ‘SamgukSagi’ is the oldest official Korean narrative. This ‘History of the Three Kingdoms’ describes the different fates which befalls two royal sisters who sold dreams to each other. From this auspicious, culturally specific opening many centuries ago, Park has created a universality where we can all partake of this highly meaningful tradition, which contemporaneously opens up our own perception of the mysteries of our subconscious.

On the 20^th November the gallery will host Dream Auction in collaboration with The Tavistock Institute, alongside a series of collateral online events. These Social Dreaming Matrix sessions will be transformed into a site-specific artwork Dream Ecologies - Patterning Social Dreaming Matrix at the gallery. The concept of ‘collecting dreams’ explores the ancient Korean concept of ‘buying dreams’ in the context of Freudian dream theory and psychoanalysis. In Korea, discussing dreams and interpreting their meaning amongst friends and family is a popular way of identifying symbols that can shed light on the events in a person’s future. Often dreams containing particularly desirable elements are informally ‘sold’, transferring energy or a state of mind from one close connection to another. Artist Bongsu Park has been exploring this concept as a point of departure for an ongoing series of works that have spanned performance, video, sound composition, and social exchanges.

Supported by Arts Council Korea