ps.press on sunday

Community/Communion? : Arko art center, Philippine Market in Daehak-ro and ps.press
ps. press was offered to play a role of observing Philippine Market, one of suggested communities. The Philippine Market is a Pilipino community market which has set up between Haewha-dong Catholic Church and Dongsung high school since 90s, every Sunday. Arko art center is another community which is located right in the middle of Maronie Park and a cultural space. Why does the center want to talk about communities? And also why does the center try to communicate with its entourage, other communities in this position? If it is to communicate with another layer (community) called artists, what other points will come up?
We have started wondering what preposition we need, to categorize artists and galleries/planners, galleries and parks, galleries and markets or Korean and Pilipino and make their mixture a community. What will form their solidarity of being a community in other words communion*? If it is possible, how individual and detailed aspects could be found through communities or something else? In addition, we will also look at communities in the perspective of relations between a couple of sets and individuals and what stories they will come up with while communicating each other.


Approach to Philippine Market at Daehak-ro
ps. press wants to have a look at Philippine Market not as a community but go into details. With more personal and individual approach, we’d like to show stories of diverse layers inside the market. We’d like to see the individuals who are often recognized as a member of certain cultural, social or national community. In which layers they are involved in, which terms will represent them. We’d like t go in that details to see individuals inside. This is to see a word in three dimensions and analyze it, which often represents a group or community, and to find out individuality hidden inside and therefore to look over a set of existing community.
Before finding out every single individuals or details of a group or a phenomenon, it is necessary to consider the approach to them. Each individual has its own language and it always transforms in one’s dimensions. One’s approach to time which moves and transforms every single moment is a set of language de-structuring and re-interpretation. It also focuses on impressions and emotions from every single experience.

Data collection of ps. press
We have started with internet searching after getting to know about Philippine Market in Daehak-ro. Our curiosity is satisfies by internet and this is not only for youngsters. Most of people around us express themselves, communicate with others and collect information through internet. You can imagine more of it through digital space-time. Start searching on the internet, which can be easily found in the life, about ‘Philippine Market in Daehak-ro’. You will be surprised to see how much information you can come up with. That also means that many people already knew about and searched for information on Philippine Market in Daehak-ro. They have already produced images on that market.
Do we actually need more research on the market after all this already-made information? We have wondered whether our experience and perspectives are special. The images we ‘got’ from two-month record in the scene as an author were not really different from the pre-produced images, but with a little bit more sophisticated feelings and descriptions. If we mix the information we got and from internet, they can not be distinguished easily. You can easily find personal texts on the web easily as now we are in 1-person media era and the quality of them are somewhat better than ours, authors. In addition, as taking pictures with DSLR camera has become a national habit, the high-quality photos make our pictures typical and ordinary. Under these circumstances, we have realized that what we need is not adding similar information but interpreting the reality in a different way.

Stories from others
Thinking of what are the stories of the object called ‘Philippine Market’ and how they are originated. I don’t feel like repeating all the outcomes of this ‘1 person media era’ or ‘blog generation.’ (I am not against this situation, but partly agree with the positive outcome of this.) Also I feel forced to find out other words for them. After seeing many blogging, reports or special issues on the web on the market, I have realized that this market has been there for over 10 years and some of them have been exposed in the media, which led many people to come to the site. (some also come here to practice their English as well.) I have also found out there are some more media bodies planning to talk about the market.
Under these circumstances, can we find out a new approach to it? We try to go in depth, trace words covering the market and re-structure the results. We are using font ‘batang’ for re-structuring and ‘dot-um’ italic for our own words. This re-structured text is in the form of narratives. It can be a little awkward but read comparatively naturally. They all come from different sources. The source is indicated in the footnote and is also linked from its number to the original pages.
We are starting in the position of reader rather than writer. Our question is how well we can catch the individuality. How are we different from others? How their perspectives moves or changes? And back to the question how we are reading their stories. The market to us is very exotic with other languages like Tagalog. It is where we walk without all of these during the weekdays and this is also where Filipino is spoken and Filipino newspapers were sold on Sunday, which also becomes daily life for somebody. These days are also both holiday and ordinary days. How the memories of these days will place in our society?

* You can read the text only in Korean and the links here.
http://arkoartcenter.or.kr/korea/03_blogs/blog_view.asp?blogGroupSeq=19&blogSeq=61

And Sunday
Our internal motivation of going to Philippine market in Daehak-ro implies something more subtle as well. There was a festive feeling when we first came out of Haewha station exit no. 1 to Philippine market. Groups of people, supposedly Pilipino, were talking to each other, smiling. They were possessing that place, as if the avenue on both sides of Dongsung High School was a festival venue.
The impression on that place was like a dance floor in a festival which attracts people to dance. Daehak-ro, symbolized as a street for youth and democracy, is being transformed into their own time with strangers in Korean as ordinary norms of this society do not mean much to them. People just gather on one fine day, make stories, make implicit appointments to meet up again and go away. If this phenomenon can be a characteristic of a festival, the Philippine market can be interpreted as a glamorous festival.
Every Sunday, we meet them by going there, looking around what they sell, having a conversation, having Pilipino food and attending a service hosted by a Pilipino priest. During that time, we observe Philippine Market community, ask names person-to-person, exchange eyes and do the hi-fives. This is the moment where you share the feeling of awkwardness and gladness.
Is two-month time long enough? These are people we would never know without this visiting. People also seem to get more familiar with us. People do smile and say ‘hi, how are you?’ to us.

* The word ‘communion’ is a preposition to form a community/group as well as a sort of solidarity from relationship building between members of a group. However, a actual group is not usually formed from inside but called like that from outside. Moreover, they think about outside interpretation formed by the word itself. This may be the reason why Fred (Frederic Mishon) was questioning on communities. You can find more of it at the end of this blog, in stories on the 1st flyer.