얄루의 <피클드 시티>는 인류세, 자연재해, 과학기술의 발전에 영향을 받은 도시 건축물, 인간의 신체 등의 요소를 접목해 재해석한 근미래의 물에 잠긴 도시 정원 시리즈이다.

얄루는 2020년부터 울릉도 해역의 갯민숭달팽이 등을 단서삼아 심해에서의 인간-비인간의 공존과 그 상태를 표현해왔다. 심해는 우주만큼 무한한 가능성을 가진 시네마틱한 표현의 공간이다. 현실의 시간 흐름과는 다른 물 속에서 아름다움, 기괴함, 두려움, 경외가 뒤섞여 디스토피아도 유토피아도 아닌, 인간과 비인간이 공존하는 미래 생태계를 다채로운 시각으로 실험한다.

백제금동대향로에는 인간과 비인간의 생태계가 화려하고 신비롭게 묘사되어 있는데, <피클드 시티>는 이를 하나의 모티브 삼아 수중도시를 사변한다. 이 작품은 또한 무속신앙, 설화 등 신화적 상상력을 통해 문제 해결을 모색한다.

Pickled City by Yaloo is a series showing submerged urban gardens in the near future, reinterpreted with a combination of elements from the human body and urban architecture influenced by the Anthropocene era, natural disasters, and technology. Since 2020, she has been drawing inspiration from the nudibranch and other forms of marine life off of Ulleung Island as she represents a state of human/non-human coexistence in the deep sea. Here, the depths of the ocean are a setting for cinematic expression with possibilities as limitless as the universe. In waters where time flows differently from the real world, Yaloo mixes elements of the beautiful, the bizarre, the frightening, and the awe-inspiring, experimenting from different perspectives with future ecosystems that are neither dystopian nor utopian, where humans and non-humans coexist.On the renowned Baekje-era relic of a gilt-bronze incense burner, the human and non-human ecosystems are depicted in a beautiful and mysterious way. Adopting this as a motif, Pickled City speculatively imagines an underwater city. The work also explores resolutions to our problems through the mythical imagination, including shamanist beliefs and folktales.

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Port to the New Era is the first edition of a media/digital art exhibition designed to share an experience with culture and art to visitors passing through the airport. It features the work of artists selected from a competition organized by the Korea Arts Management Service (KAMS) and the Incheon International Airport Corporation (IIAC).

Through a total of 14 large media screens positioned in Terminals 1 and 2 and the Concourse of Incheon International Airport—an airport of the future incorporating smart technology, as well as a cultural space blending technology and art—it includes works of digital video art by 11 eminent contemporary Korean artists and designers (including one artist team).

The word “port” in the title Port to the New Era is a reference to the airport, but it also carried the meaning of “transporting.” It has associations with the “port” on a computer, where inside and outside connect, and it connotes the idea of connecting with and proceeding into a new era where different worlds come together. As in the word “teleport,” it signifies not gradual movement, but radical change and progression from one place to another.

An airport is a place for travel. Travel is an act of leaving to parts unknown, an action that always presents us with unfamiliar experiences and rejuvenates our mind and body. The airport may be seen as the setting where this journey into the unknown begins—where that sense of excitement and unfamiliarity are expressed most symbolically. In his book Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Georges Perec characterizes the airport as a place that departs from everyday conventions and rhythms, an exotic setting for escaping from our ruts. The purpose of its existence is evident, and it is therefore a clearer place than reality.

Viewing an art exhibition bears several similarities to travel: the clarity of its purpose for being, the conferring of an unfamiliar experience, and the idea of an act that revitalizes us physically and mentally. The Port to the New Era exhibition at Incheon International Airport transforms the traveler into a viewer through media screens positioned in the airport setting. The aura of the “gallery” as a special environment disappears, the artwork presenting itself in the form of fleeting moments amid the bustling of departure gates and duty-free shops. Those brief encounters become portals, where the traveler-cum-viewer enters the artist’s world. The viewers who accept the invitation begin a journey in search of the artwork’s meaning, encountering the rich worlds that the artists share.

On the east side of Terminal 2 is a showcase exhibition where viewers can see all of the videos that are being presented across the airport. The work is presented so that each of the artists can be accessed in the terminal’s lounge space, which affords a view of the runway outside the window. Each of the artworks connects to a different world. They are “ports” and “portals” that offer a connection to a different environment. Just as airports knit cities across the world into a network, we look forward to travelers experiencing new forms of revitalization through artwork that offers them encounters with a diverse array of unknown realms.

text by marsgreen