City of Melbourne’s interactive partnership with South Korea returns

The City of Melbourne has partnered with South Korean not-for-profit organisation Jeonju Cultural Foundation to deliver an interactive cross-cultural experience at ArtPlay.

Shadows in Twin Cities is an interactive experience where children from Melbourne and Jeonju connect via a life-sized, live video screen that stands 1.8 metres tall and will run until March 10.

As part of Arts Centre Melbourne’s Asia TOPA festival, Shadows in Twin Cities will be held at ArtPlay at Birrarung Marr and Fed Square in Melbourne, as well as Palbok Art Factory in Jeonju.

Through an unusual one-on-one exchange using movement and gestures, Shadows in Twin Cities encourages children to learn about each other and the city landscapes where they live through three unique events.

As part of the Meet Me workshop, Melbourne children will meet new friends from Jeonju by tracing a life-sized silhouette of each other using translucent, hand-crafted Hanji paper and flying them outside in the wind.

Meanwhile, Find My Shadow will feature 16 life-sized Hanji shadows, made by Melbourne children of their new Korean friends, pasted in unexpected locations throughout Fed Square.

The final event, Watch Me Fly, is a large-scale video installation that will show children flying each other’s shadows in their urban environment. The footage will be broadcast simultaneously on the Fed Square Big Screen and at Palbok Art Factory.

Lord Mayor Nick Reece said, “The City of Melbourne is proud to collaborate with our international partner, the Jeonju Cultural Foundation, to create Shadows in Twin Cities, which offers an engaging and creative exchange between children in Australia and Korea.”

This year marks the fourth time participative artist Jessica Wilson and ArtPlay, alongside visual artist Gijong Yoo and the Jeonju Cultural Foundation, have collaborated to bring this project to life.

Over the years, the productions have seen children using their own surroundings as the subject of quirky new art, speaking to a mountain, and unlocking puzzles through interactive digital poems.

“Shadows in Twin Cities uses creative expression to enable conversations between children in different cities. We have used elements of each place to build shared stories, like the wind, the surrounding buildings, and the Hanji paper,” ArtPlay artist Jessica Wilson said.

“Despite them not speaking the same verbal language and using digital screens as our portal to the other side of the world, the project is very tactile, and the children have a genuine shared connection to learn about each other and their landscapes.”