• SMSM

Read and Let Them Read!

• 2021
• animated text on LED display
• 32.5 x 172.5 cm, 8 min. 4 sec.

The video presents a selection of slogans used to promote the annual Book Week programs and the Seoul International Book Fair from 1954 through 2021. Some of the mottos relate reading to the national and personal strength (“Knowledge Is Power” of 1954 and “Brighter Nation of Reading People” of 1962) or social agendas (“Through Books to the World to the Future,” 2002), while the others provoke curiosity, such as “Metamorphosis” (2017) and “Entanglement” (2020). Read and Let Them Read (the title itself is from a 1959 slogan) displays the text with obvious keywords (“books” and “reading”) redacted to shift the viewer’s attention to their context.

• Project type:
• moving image

• Commissioners:
• Hyun Seewon
• Lee Sang-gil
• Seoul International Book Fair

• Exhibition:
• Punctuation: New World Coming, Seoul International Book Fair 2021 main exhibition (SFactory, Seoul, 2021)