Overview
SAUNA LAB imagines a citizen-led climate-crisis research institute made by repurposing the scientific infrastructure and hot-spring facilities of Yuseong, Daejeon. Naming its participants “climate-crisis survivors,” the work explores possible forms of climate action, intelligence, and creativity where scientific research meets bathing culture.
SAUNA LAB: Flowers of Hot Spring (2024), developed during Yeom’s residency at Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB), extends the project through Taiwanese hot-spring and Indigenous cultures. It connects wider Asian bathing cultures with questions of ageing, multicultural cities, and alternatives to extractive capitalism.
Text: “In Between the Jjimjilbang and the Laboratory” (2024), Kahyun Lee, Tate Modern researcher.
Details
- Media: 3D performative apparatus-environment; multi-channel video installation
- Soundtrack, Flowers of Hot Spring: Taeyoon Kim
- Chinese translation: Wu Daquan
- Support: Daejeon Museum of Art; Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB); Hualien CCIP
Exhibitions
2024 — NEXT CODE: Records of a Voyage Where No One Is Left Behind, Daejeon Museum of Art, Daejeon
2024 — Whispering, Plating Myth, Hualien Cultural and Creative Industries Park, Hualien
2025 — Future Tense, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong
2025 — Organoid Developer Conference, ARTIENCE DAEJEON, COEX Magok, Seoul
〈SAUNA LAB〉은 대전 유성구의 과학연구 자본과 온천 시설을 재활용해 시민참여형 기후위기 연구소를 상상한다. 참여자를 ‘기후위기 생존자’로 다시 명명하고, 유성의 과학연구와 온천문화가 만나는 지점에서 가능한 기후행동과 지성, 창의성을 탐구한다.
작가의 대만 C-LAB 레지던시에서 제작된 〈SAUNA LAB: Flowers of Hot Spring〉(2024)은 대만의 온천과 원주민 문화로 확장된다. 다양한 아시아 목욕문화와 다문화 도시의 노년, 착취적 자본주의를 넘어서는 관점을 교차해 사유한다.
Inhwa Yeom 