history

In “Wiping my eyes: in lieu of preface,”published in the Non-Aligned Reader (2020), sociologist Dong-Jin Seo emphasizes the importance of historical narratives that trace memory in the Third World (also known as the Global South), where experiments in modernization and decolonization have taken place. Against the backdrop of Seoul, a capital city of the Korean Peninsula whose geopolitical location occupies the easternmost edge of Northeast Asia, SMB has developed into an international event situated in a non-Western region, continuously exploring shifting perceptions of the city and media while addressing pressing contemporary issues and agendas. It has also strived to recognize the temporality and historical flow that contemporary art engages with. The research, publications, dialogues, collections, and discussions conducted as part of each edition of SMB operate as historical practices that foster connections and movements from local to global, from collective to individual, and from oblivion to memory.