Ewha Womans University invited Nam June Paik (1932-2006), the "father of video art," as a distinguished professor in August 1999. Then based in New York, Paik taught graduate students "Video Art Research" through what was then cutting-edge "cyber lecturing," guiding them in creating works via the internet and digital imagery. Using Paik's appointment as momentum, Ewha established media art-related departments and laid out plans for concentrated investment in visual culture. This led to the launch of the Ewha Media Art Presentation (EMAP), an international media art festival, in 2001.
Hosted by Ewha Womans University (President Lee Hyang-sook) and organized by the College of Art & Design (Dean Moon Kyung-won), EMAP opened on Nov. 11 and runs through Nov. 16 with diverse programs including outdoor screenings held across the Ewha campus. Screenings continue daily until 10 p.m. throughout the festival, reflecting the nocturnal viewing character of media art. Marking its 15th edition this year, EMAP carries added significance as it coincides with Ewha's 140th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of Paik's death.
A special exhibition tied to the 20th anniversary, "Nam June Paik, Ecologist of the Videosphere," curated by the Nam June Paik Art Center (Director Park Nam-hee), is being held at the ECC Lee Sam-bong Hall. The exhibition presents Paik as an ecologist who pondered how humans, machines, and nature could coexist within the new technological environment shaped by television and video. On view are "TV Crown" (1965), one of Paik's early television experiments, and "Electronic Opera No. 1," part of "The Medium is the Medium," the first video art program in the United States, produced in collaboration with WGBH. Also featured are "Moon is the Oldest TV" (1965), which contemplated time and space through lunar phases, and "Elephant Cart" (2001), which reflected on older modes of transmission in an era of rapid communication while foreseeing global connectivity. Moon Kyung-won, dean of the College of Art & Design and herself a media artist, said, "As EMAP, which began on Paik's future vision and experimental spirit, has grown into an international media art event, this special exhibition will serve as an important occasion to revisit its history and meaning."
EMAP's main exhibition, "A Thousand Bamboos of Silver Rain: The Time of Climate," explores how human-induced climate change manifests in the environment through a five-scene structure centered on the "water cycle." The title draws on the classical literary metaphor "cheonman-eunjuk" (千萬銀竹), likening torrential rain to "silver bamboo," and alerts viewers to today's climate reality, in which downpours are experienced as disasters. Works by 40 teams from Korea and abroad—including Nicolás García Uriburu, Marcel Broodthaers, Nam June Paik, Jud Yalkut, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Park Min-ha, and Jeon Bo-kyung—are shown on a 7.5-meter-wide outdoor screen and other venues.
This edition of EMAP was advised by Frances Morris, director emerita of Tate in the U.K., who served as a distinguished professor at Ewha for three years from 2023. The exhibition was curated by John Kenneth Paranada, who participated in last year's international symposium "Art, Time, and the Sea in the Age of Climate Crisis," together with independent curators Chu Sung-a and Lim Soo-young.
