In 1968, Taesoon Jung entered the English department at Ewha Women’s University. A year later, she was selected as a guide for the EXPO ’70 Korean Pavilion and stayed in Osaka for six months. In the mid-20th century, what kind of a space was Seoul for a woman, who was born in an East Asian country divided into two as a result of colonial rule and ideological conflict, and who experienced revolutions and dictatorships in her teenage years and entered a university?

There is always a dichotomous way of thinking – sympathy or criticism – about artists and architects in developing countries, and in the perspectives of looking at them, but to me those two ways feel the same. Both are subordinate to the political system and power-oriented. From a different point of view, can we talk about the fascination of the future and its impossibility? The voice of an observer neglected from the system of sympathy or criticism. The voice of an inner minority.

The title, Light from Anywhere, is a parody of ‘Light of the East’, a poem by Rabindranath Tagore. The former was a phrase discussed in the EXPO ’70’s theme committee meetings, suggested by International journalist Shigeharu Matsumoto. But, eventually, the selected theme was ‘Progress and Harmony for Mankind’.