Seongsan Art Hall

Aki Onda, Bells, 2024, glass, ceramic and clay hand bells, dimensions variable, Commissioned by Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), 2021
Aki Onda, Bells performance, 2024, performance, guest performer: Park Jiha

15:00-15:30, 16:00-16:30, Friday, September 27, 2024, Seongsan Art Hall, 2F, 03

Commissioned by the 7th Changwon Sculpture Biennale 2024

For Aki Onda, the bell is a mysterious object, veiled in mystery. Though certainly a tool used by countless people for various reasons throughout human history, bells also have no single clear purpose as to their why or how. To compose Bells, Aki Onda spent 15 years searching for small bells made of glass, ceramics, and clay. The silent gathering of these bells on their white, circular pedestal invites the viewer to imagine their sounds, now lost, and how their former owners might have used them, and to sense into the history that has since been erased from them. Bells is regularly shown in collaboration with other artists, transformed from an installation piece into a performance; for this Biennale, Onda presents a performance with musician Park Jiha, summoning the bells from their stillness back into our time.