The 5th Gwangju Design Biennale will explore cultural habits, shared characteristics, and coded conventions that inform the many unspoken contexts by which we communicate with one another. Our use of empty or ambiguous signifiers or placeholders, such as “anything” and “something” key into different elements of communication beyond literal speech such as emotional and cultural prompts as well as responses. The ability to grasp these hidden contexts and habits in our day-to-day communication can be especially important for designers who constantly search for insight into new, subconscious or concealed needs and wants.

Reciprocal communication and contextual understanding related to cultural habits and characteristics are essential to the conceptual word pair “GUSIGI, MASIGI” which informs this exhibition. Two Korean words widely used in the Jeolla province, “GUSIGI, MASIGI,” is used to refer to an object or idea when the actual name escapes the mind, and is similar to the phrase “what do you call it” in English. “GUSIGI, MASIGI” are excellent keywords for designers sensitive to both familiar and new environments who strive toward creative forms of understanding and expression.

In this spirit, the English title, Anything, Something, also draws from the meanings associated with the homophones ‘것’ - gt (for the Korean ‘것이기’/ ‘GUSIGI’ ) which represents ‘thing’ and ‘멋’ – mt (for the Korean ‘멋이기’/’MASIGI)  which represents ‘value’. Anything gestures to the day-to-day task of designers to create an endless storehouse of things, while Something points to the designers’ value-creating role and task to identify specific needs and forms. Thus the processes and contexts that go into creating ‘Something’ from ‘Anything’ in accordance with users’ specific needs and desires will be of primary concern in this exhibition.