The focus of this issue of Hyphen Journal is the socio-ecological and transnational art project Song of the Wind, conceived and directed by curator Sunyoung Oh. The contributions from artists, architects, activists and curators provide insights into the various ways in which the project has operated as an impetus for decolonial thought, ecological transition and the post-industrial transformation of different geographical regions; some of the sites the project has engaged with since 2022 include coastal villages, riverbanks, urban voids and islands in South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. Its modes of collaborative research display a concern for how the specific features of a locality shape the lives of its inhabitants and vice versa. As Sunyoung Oh explains, ‘Song of the Wind has been exploring how artistic practice can attune to unstable rhythms of a place and reconfigure the ethical and sensorial grounds of collaboration.’ At the same time, the project ‘… seeks to move beyond human-centred narratives toward more-than-human coexistence, to propose new imaginaries.’
Sunyoung Oh’s contribution, ‘Song of the Wind: Imagining the Future of Collaboration through Incomplete Rhythms (2022-2025)’, represents an overview of the project to date and is presented in 3 parts. Part 1 contextualises the foundational phases of the project, when the curator embedded international artists-in-residence within the fishing and seaweed farming community of Yaksan-myeon, Wando-gun, South Korea, to coincide with the kelp and cheonggak harvests in 2023. Part 2 considers the extension of the project in 2024-25 as a response to other socio-ecological contexts that include the Pasig River in Manila, the typhoon-ravaged urban trees of Hanoi, and long-established and more informal settlements in the environs of Hsinchu that are at risk from rising sea levels. In discussing the collaborative creative responses to these places and their theoretical frameworks, including Lefebvre’s ‘rhythmanalysis’, Oh also reflects on her experiences of curating within different cultural infrastructures and the challenges and necessities of adapting to local conditions. In Part 3 the primary focus is on the broad array of Song of the Wind’s theoretical underpinnings, and their intersections between the social, the ecological and research-based practice; some of the questions raised concern whether situations of friction and instability should to be understood, more than feared; and that given the social and ecological problems faced by communities involve more-than-human actors and entities, rather than seeking immediate solutions, more effective catalysts for longer-term change could be acts of care, recognition and empathic listening.
The report, ‘Layered Abandonment and the Futures of Fishing Villages: A Spatial Study of Yaksan-myeon’, is informed by fieldwork conducted by Yeo-Ju Yi and Chang-hwi Je as part of the Song of the Wind project. It is also co-authored by them, together with Sunyoung Oh, Professor Shin-Koo Woo and a team of researchers based in the Department of Architecture, Pusan National University. Drawing on empirical research, statistical data and perspectives from architectural theory, critical spatial studies and rural sociology, the study offers a nuanced contextual understanding of the cultural resonances and transitional socio-economic nature of Yaksan-myeon—information that provides a backdrop to the activities and objectives of Song of the Wind. It provides insights into the forces of change, but equally the effects of inertia that shape both the economy and ecology of the island, and the authors speculate on which aspects of the island’s heritage, location, and built environment may offer potential for positive transformation.
‘Becoming entangled’ is an interview that foregrounds the perspectives of two artist-participants who collaborated on a performance work during the first phase of the project on Yaksan-myeon in 2023. One of the artists, Yeongran Suh, is an experienced Korean-born choreographer, now based in Denmark. The other, Zeke Sales, is an emerging artist and activist from the Philippines. The interview reveals the very different backgrounds and research practices of each performer, but also reveals a striking commonality of socio-ecological interests and anthropological concerns.
Vietnamese urban ecology researcher Vũ Hải Nguyễn’s contribution, ‘Staging Urban Voids – Tree Holes in Post-typhoon Hanoi’ (trans. support by Huế Nguyễn), offers another participant’s perspective of their involvement in Song of the Wind. His project started with a mapping of the spaces formerly occupied by non-indigenous tree species—a legacy of Hanoi’s colonial past—many of which were destroyed by Typhoon Yagi in 2024. The research resulted in an ethnographic photographic record of how the city’s residents redefined, utilised or abandoned these spaces that, for the time being at least, lie beyond the scope of urban management. Nguyễn’s study not only explores the potential of intersecting urban fields but the political dimension of ecological practice.
‘Tree Planting as Socially Engaged Practice: A Collaborative Project along the Red River in Hanoi’ is a collaboratively authored contribution from Vietnamese researchers Chu Kim Đức, Nguyễn Huệ Phương, Trần Thu Trang, Nguyễn Minh Anh (from the Hanoi-based social enterprise organisation Think Playgrounds) and Vũ Hải Nguyễn with Sunyoung Oh. The article examines the collaborative planting of native trees along the Red River in 2025 to restore the integrity of the erosion-prone riverbanks, while promoting the collective agency and tree maintenance skills of local people. The project is presented as a situated and relational process, one shaped through acts of care, and where benefits arise from more-than-human collaboration.
Sylbee Kim is a Korean artist working between Berlin and Seoul. Her text ‘Non-exploitative Art for the Sake of Continuation’ revisits several of her past projects to consider a range of situations that challenged and developed her ethical and sustainable approach to working with others. As a result of an invitation to participate in Song of the Wind,Kim visited La Pán Tẩn village and the Mù Cang Chải district in the North Vietnamese mountains, and queer communities in Hanoi; her article culminates in a reflection on her core experiences of these places and the questions that arose for her about how to ensure non-exploitative means of collaboration.
Po-hao Chi’s ‘Island of Afterglow: Attuning to Rhythms at the Edge of Water’ discusses an artistic inquiry into the socio-ecological rhythms of Jiugang, a small islet at the mouth of the Touqian River in Hsinchu, Taiwan. It discusses the activities encompassed in a two-day event developed in collaboration with Fang-yu Tsui and Fifi Hu at ZONE SOUND CREATIVE, and local community members, featuring two guided walks, and a tactile modelling session where participants explored the island’s layered history, culture and everyday life, including the environmental effects of the tides and wind, and the personal and shared memories of local people.
The Song of the Wind project is ongoing and is due to extend to Japan in November 2025, with new stories yet to unfold in 2026. The texts included here, therefore, disseminate some of the investigations and interim findings of an unfinished process. This moment of taking stock while the project is still in progress, Oh suggests, is in itself a curatorial gesture—one that gathers and expands its discourses through collective and comparative reflections.
Guest editors: Sunyoung Oh and Tessa Peters
Editor-in-Chief: Matthias Kispert