Undercurrents - Waves Walking on the Water
SEA ART FESTIVAL 2025, Busan Biennale
27.09. – 02.11.2025  
Artistic Directors: Keumhwa Kim, Bernard Vienat
www.saf2025.org

Subtle yet persistent, the undercurrent acts as a force that shapes and sustains society, reconfiguring the relationships between human and non-human beings. By tracing these quiet movements, coexistence emerges not as a fixed state, but as a fluid, evolving mode of being. Flowing beneath established orders, the undercurrent gently displaces normative frameworks, opening a space to reflect on how we perceive, relate, and dwell.

This year’s Sea Art Festival takes root in the unique coastal geography where the Nakdong River meets the sea. Located in Saha-gu—where Mount Ami, the river estuary, and the South Sea converge—Dadaepo is defined by the constant merging of waters with differing densities. It is a site where new ecological and cultural narratives are continuously born. Under the title "Undercurrents – Waves Walking on the Water," the exhibition explores the invisible metabolic flows hidden between land and water, asking how these rhythms intersect with our daily lives and how they might surface as a shared sensory awareness.

With 23 artistic positions, and newly commissioned works for this year´s Sea Art Festival, the exhibition traces a journey through coastal thresholds—from incinerated grounds to restored wetlands—each site revealing the metabolic forces shaping this place. It highlights the hidden presences that emerge in the liminal space between land and sea, and composes a new terrain shaped by hybridity, circulation, and transformation.

Can these shifting waves foster deeper connections and awaken new sensory energies? This exhibition examines how the ecological rhythms of undercurrents quietly permeate local culture, coastal communities, and the essence of everyday life.