{"id":1451,"date":"2025-10-03T09:31:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T09:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laurenhwhite.com\/?p=1451"},"modified":"2025-10-06T10:46:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T10:46:02","slug":"seoul-creatives-brand-heatherwicks-humanise-wall-a-profound-lack-of-judgment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laurenhwhite.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/03\/seoul-creatives-brand-heatherwicks-humanise-wall-a-profound-lack-of-judgment\/","title":{"rendered":"Seoul creatives brand Heatherwick's Humanise Wall “a profound lack of judgment”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Humanise<\/div>\n

Two creatives chosen to contribute to the Humanise Wall<\/a> at Thomas Heatherwick’s Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism<\/a> have criticised the installation<\/a> for being insensitive to its South Korean<\/a> context.<\/span><\/p>\n

Seoul-born writer Maya West and Seoul<\/a> based-artist Elliot Woods, who were both part of teams selected in an open call to create pieces to be featured on the Humanise Wall, have expressed concern to Dezeen about the installation.<\/p>\n

Designed by Heatherwick Studio<\/a> as the centrepiece of the biennale, which is directed by studio founder Heatherwick, the Humanise Wall is a 90-metre-long installation in Songhyeon Green Plaza park in central Seoul.<\/p>\n

It is covered in a combination of large-scale text, artworks and images of buildings from around the world.<\/p>\n

Heatherwick has pitched the wall as “like a magazine, but 16-metres high”, intended to grab locals’ attention and provoke a conversation about the built environment.<\/p>\n

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The Humanise Wall designed by Heatherwick Studio is the centrepiece of this year’s Seoul Biennale. Photo is by Yongjoon Choi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But West, whose work\u00a0features on the wall, is unhappy about the installation.<\/p>\n

“I think coming to a divided nation and blithely building a huge wall shows a profound lack of judgment and taste,” she said.<\/p>\n

West collaborated with architect Melody Song on a project titled A World of Common Things for the biennale,\u00a0but told Dezeen she has since “functionally stepped away”.<\/p>\n

Woods, co-founder of Seoul-based art and technology studio Kimchi and Chips<\/a>, argued that the site’s history means that the choice of a wall is inappropriate.<\/p>\n

The plaza was inaccessible to the public for 110 years, having been controlled by Japan during its colonisation of South Korea and subsequently the US, before reopening in 2022.<\/p>\n

“Then a couple of years later [after the reopening], Heatherwick built a giant wall there, aligned to create a north-south division in the spiritual heart of Seoul, for the purpose of trying to occupy as much visual attention as possible,” said Woods.<\/p>\n

The site was selected by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and also used as the main venue for the previous Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism in 2023, curated by South Korean architect Byoung Soo Cho.<\/p>\n

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Heatherwick’s directorship of this year’s biennale is under criticism by a pair of Seoul creatives. Photo by Yongjoon Choi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

West and Elliot both responded to an open call in late 2024 as part of the biennale’s creative communities programme, which called for works to be included in a “hero installation” that would be “envisioned as a large-scale Jogakbo tapestry”.<\/p>\n

However, neither understood that the installation would be a wall, and both said they would not have entered proposals if they had.<\/p>\n

“I have real questions about the wall,” West said. “It’s clear that building this structure was just something they were excited to do; it has nothing to do with Seoul, or Korea.”<\/p>\n

Heatherwick has revealed that his studio initially devised twisting-wall concept 26 years ago, for Blackburn station in northern England.<\/p>\n

West described her team’s original proposal as a community-based project with a modular, participatory installation component.<\/p>\n

“It became clear that the only actual output the biennale wanted from us was a 2D image somehow reflecting this concept, to put on what would essentially be a huge billboard,” she explained.<\/p>\n