Name Project: Looking for You in Seoul

2009, Advertising truck, photograph, text on wall
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The “Name Project: Looking for You” is an ongoing project since 2006 that delves into “searching” as both a personal desire and social practice. In the project, with searching ultimately based on chance, there is always the possibility that it will turn out “fruitless.” This project thus focuses less on the result but on the process of searching itself—which occurs differently each time, along with the different goals and desires that instigate this practice. In the “Name Project: Looking for You in Seoul,” a signboard advertising a search for 10 people with the most common names in South Korea is created and loaded onto the back of an advertising truck. This truck then travels throughout Seoul during the period of the exhibition searching for such people. While the advertising truck is parked either in front of the Artsonje Center or nearby during the center’s hours of operation, once night falls, it turns on the signboard and travels throughout Seoul. The “Name Project” continues until people with all the names in the signboard are found, visit the gallery, and agree to participate in the project.