BLOCK UNIVERSE YONG IN HONG

Block Universe, London’s international performance art festival, is back for the third year running, from 29 May to 4 June 2017, with a programme of newly commissioned performances, UK premieres, talks and workshops.

Taking place at renowned institutions, including the Royal Academy of Arts and Somerset House, as well as unique locations across the city, the week long festival presents work by some of the most exciting UK-based and international artists working in performance art today: Nicole Bachmann, Eglė Budvytytė, Işıl Eğrikavuk, Young In Hong, Liz Magic Laser, Stina Nyberg, Rory Pilgrim, Will Rawls, Zadie Xa and a first-time collaboration between Kim Coleman, Zoë Poluch and Cara Tolmie. The week-long programme includes five newly commissioned site-specific performances, four UK premieres as well as talks and workshops. This year’s festival theme will address notions of nationhood, inclusivity and identity politics set against a changing socio-political landscape. Looking at networked communities and the power of collective voices, Block Universe will champion work that questions the status quo in divisive times.

The choreographed movements for the UK premiere of 5100: Pentagon were inspired by collected archival images relating to the Gwangju uprising on 18 May 1980, and are set to an adapted version of the 1980s demonstration song, ‘A Song of May’. Each performance is constructed based on a web-tutorial accessed by anonymous groups of participants with no restrictions to age, gender and art experience. This project brings to light an unexplored period in history as an intensive moment, performed repetitively yet differently by voluntary participants in every new iteration. 5100: Pentagon is a project by Young In Hong in collaboration with choreographers Ann So-Hee Mannik Kristiansen and Sarah Louise Kristiansen. Young In Hong (b. 1972, Seoul, Korea) is based in London and Seoul and holds a PhD in Fine Art from Goldsmiths University of London. Hong’s work has been shown at international venues such as ICA London, Gwangju Biennale, Plateau Museum, Seoul, Museum of Art and Design, New York, Saatchi Gallery, London, and a special exhibition at the Liverpool Biennial.