BTS are constantly pushing new boundaries and this time, they’ve come out with ‘Connect, BTS’, a project that reflects the relationship between art and music! This venture, will find them acting as patrons of a variety of art projects around the world.
“Connect, BTS is a global project to connect five cities and twenty-two artists, each of whom contributes their unique philosophy and imagination to it,” reads an introductory statement on the project’s website. “This project aims to redefine the relationships between art and music, the material and immaterial, artists and their audiences, artists and artists, theory and practice. Connect, BTS may be described in terms of a collective curatorial practice by curators around the world who resonated with BTS’ philosophy.” And well, that sums it up pretty neatly!
The ‘Connect, BTS’ project kicked off at London’s Serpentine Galleries with the launch of “Catharsis” by Jakob Kudsk Steensen. And galleries across London, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Seoul, and New York will host artistic events until the end of March.
The ‘Connect, BTS’ project is spearheaded by artistic director, Daehung Lee, who has an immense amount of experience in the field as he’s even curated the Korean Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennial. He clarified that the aim of the project is also to connect with people of “different cultural backgrounds, social classes, ethnicities, genders and identities,” across five cities.
In fact, interestingly enough, the first piece, called ‘Catharsis’, is made up of one continuous shot that moves through a “virtual forest” which is made up of footage gathered from several North American forests. But perhaps the most exciting installation to look forward to is the one in Buenos Aires, where the artist, Tomás Saraceno, plans to lift a human into the sky using a balloon, made entirely out of plastic bags. It will be powered only by the sun and the air we breathe. So, any kind of fossil fuel, solar panels, batteries or helium are out for the count. This balloon will float from London to Seoul, according to the artist and fans will even be able to help out if it ever gets tangled or caught.
Sounds stunning, doesn’t it? We can’t wait to see how this project unfolds!