FF

thinggood85@gmail.com(Min Sung-hoon)
aroma1117@gmail.com( Choi Bo-yeon) 
visualdive@gamil.com(Jang Woo-seok)
pengdo@gmail.com(Pengdo)

FF
Min Sung-hoon, Choi Bo-yeon, Jang Woo-seok
2010   Seoul National University Visual Communication Major (BFA)

Pengdo 
2010   Sungkyun kwan University Psychology (BSc)

Solo and Group Exhibition
2011   The Sociological Imagination of the City, Seoul Art Space GEUMCHEON, Seoul, Korea
         TedxGeumcheon "Hero in Geumcheon" , Seoul Art Space GEUMCHEON, , Seoul, Korea
2010   Greening Green, ARKO
         Design in the time of creative Seoul , Insa Art Space
         "on poster" TW+FF workshop & exhibition, Space of Art.ETC

Residency 
2010-2011   Seoul Art Space GEUMCHEON 2nd-term residency artist, Seoul, Korea

*FF is a variable group of members

A group formed in 2009 by four Visual Design students from Seoul National University to study and practice their design outside of the school's fixed curriculum. Based in Seoul Art Space Geumcheon and working actively with the following members: Min Sunghoon, Jang Wooseok, Choi Boyeon and Pengdo. Depending on the project at hand, new members participate accordingly. They are currently working on a few projects that have been under the spotlight in 2010, but have not yet been exposed to the public. http://www.ilikeseoul.org/

Design Activist’s View of Seoul Design

Ahn In-kee(Assistant Professor of Hanyang University)

Art has two aspects. One is to show what we know in reality or to show what we dream of. These arts receive praise from people by drawing the perceptual beauty or romantic imaginations. The other art twists the way we see, feel and imagine. It overthrows the thoughts, customs, and hobbies of what you already know and throws it into chaos which makes you check the trap that you have fallen into. If the previous art was sound and static, the latter art is dynamic and transforming. We want to see our dreams but, on the other hand, an alarm clock is required to awaken us from the dream. Freedom to dream and the insight to be awakened are the two ways of art.

If you shed light on the activities of the design group FF, which began to be known after the Hatchmen Project, you will probably see it as the latter way of art out of the two methods. The group FF consisting of Min Sung-hoon, Jang Woo-suk, and Jo Sung-do appeared through the process of presenting the intervention and opinions of the public design businesses and policies of the city of Seoul. As it is well-known, city of Seoul’s representative business of “World Design Capital, Seoul City,” it is deploying various design businesses to strengthen the rethinking of the city’s image and competitiveness. The field of design being adopted as the core business of the market and the large amount of budget being fixed and enforced into it, in general, had a welcoming atmosphere, and it is understood as an instrument to leap in design. Unlike views of the authorities and professional designers on the design policy, FF wanted to hear the voices of the people living in the environment changed by the design business of Seoul.

Min Sung-hoon pointed out the Seoul’s public design by saying, “Municipality, designers, and the citizens must correspond. Design is not just about the visible aspect. Citizens’ perceptions and thoughts are important, but the citizens do not speak much. I think we should be equipped with software that can tell what is good.” FF questions whether the opinions of the citizens, who are the intended subjects and the ones to enjoy them, are considered during the process of design. The problem is raised whether the designs are willing to listen to the voices of the citizens or are dominating over the people.

During the short history of Korea’s design, the stream of design for the society was buried under the logic of major enterprises and designs for the market. Though the designs hold public’s nature, in actuality, the public nature of design exists in an improper method. In Seoul, it has been removing roadside markets and repairing signs for the beauty of the city, and has made city center squares and fountains have been added. Cheonggye creek was made and the aesthetic standard of the apartment’s exterior has been increased. Who determines the standards for the aesthetics of the city, and who is the criteria for? At the least, the appearance should not suppress life. Gwanghwamun Square is a great place for pictures, but a difficult area to stay. When looking at a uniformly partitioned signature districts, the functionalism of the designer threatens the diversity of the region. Minor aspects regulate the whole.

The work of the FF asks the public designs which have stayed in the beautifying business to look at life. Possibilities of various designs’ functionalism are expected, not the uniformity. It is hoped that our lives are not judged by just the name of designs. Designs do not restore through visual pleasure nor are they catalysts in stimulating unnecessary desires to promote spending. FF is seeking out the possibility of designs freed out of economic and decorative discourse. To create a niche and a habitat for proper designs, they are looking into the citizens’ lives who are the actual consumers and who enjoy the designs.

Meanwhile, the FF has enhanced the participation and communication of the citizens through SNS space (Social Network Service), and have become the design agency activists executing the voices of the citizens. FF is the voice which practices and expresses the position of neighbors, citizens and small designs of disadvantageous groups against the huge designs that represent enterprises and the government. Like what Victor Papanek (1927-1998) had pointed out a long time ago, designers need to spend creative time to resolve the true needs of those under served segments of the society which corresponds to 80% of the world’s population. For FF, challenging the conventions of design through design, and who are awaken from the illusions of design, a stage to realize true and real designs will be opened.