Liminal City

LOCATION
Busan, KR
YEAR
2021
CLIENT
Hyundai Motor Studio Busan
CURATOR
Somi Sim
PROGRAM
Temporary art installation
TEAM
James Shen, He Zhe, Zang Feng, Lin Mingkai, Huang Jia
PHOTOGRAPHY
Hyundai Motor Company, Yean Ku, People’s Architecture Office

Networks of tubes conjure images of instantaneous movement of matter and energy between places.

From delivering mail through pneumatic tubes to transporting people in Hyperloops, interconnected tubes that move content represent the future as well as a bygone past. Today’s modern buildings, thick and cut off from the outdoors, cannot support life without a complex infrastructure of ducts for moving air. Liminal City presents an in-between place to be occupied and explored. It is built of elements that are designed to be unseen and arranged to connect fragments of space and time.

Liminal City is a site specific installation and is designed to stimulate interplay within the gallery spaces of the Hyundai Motor Studio Busan. Various limbs of Liminal City are fitted with mirrors. They work as periscopes that create visual connections across the length of the gallery and in between the ground floor, the second floor, and mezzanine level. A periscope also reaches down to passersby outside so that they can view artwork inside the gallery above.

Liminal City was commissioned for the “Do You Miss the Future?” exhibition curated by Somi Sim. It is on display from December 9, 2021 to March 31, 2022.