Chohakki (early 8th Century) written by Seogyeon in the Tang Dynasty says “Goryeo people feed seaweed to mothers after seeing that whales eat seaweed to heal postpartum wounds.”
Seaweed soup is the first food a Korean mother eats after giving birth. They celebrate the birth by eating seaweed soup on every birthday, paying a tribute to the mother’s love, parturition and childbearing.

During the residency at Frans Masereel Centrum with the Platform for Algae Diplomacy, Yemo Park created ‘Moyeokguk’, a booklet comprised of different seaweed soup recipes using risograph printing. For the exhibition ‘Tidal Zone Experience’ Park presents a ceramic birthday soup stand, as a tribute to motherhoods. The soup vessel depicts a story of her mother and herself spotting a crane while talking a walk along the river. Her last grandmother reincarnated as crane, the three generations of woman find themselves on a circular trail that brings them back to where they began. 

During the event Yemo will share the birthday soup in a conversation with Filip Van Dingenen and Mihnea Tanasescu on the protocols of an inclusive approach of ceremonial aspects and traditions.

PROGRAM
19:15 - 20:45– Conversation with Yemo Park, Filip Van Dingenen and Mihnea Tănăsescu.
You have the possibility to visit the exhibition afterwards (open until 22:00).

Yemo Park is a Korean visual artist whose work revolves around creating fictitious companies. She studied Sculpture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and Videography at Ecole de Recherche Graphique, Brussels. Through her enterprises, Yemo questions how artists establish their financial autonomy and the role of an artist in social contexts. The new systems of economy she creates also propose a new market, in between the existing art market and the relevant industry sector her business invests in. Her ongoing fictional businesses include the creation of memorial statues for dead dogs, portable self-defence sculptures for women, and the design and construction of artistic swimming pools.

Mihnea Tanasescu is a political ecologist working in the Political Science Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He has worked on the political and legal representation of natural entities, the politics of environmental catastrophe, as well as nature conservation, restoration, and rewilding in Europe. In 2022 he published 2 books: Understanding the Rights of Nature: A Critical Introduction, and Ecocene Politics.