The 2025 Seoul Mediacity Biennale has opened as an extraordinary citywide séance, where visitors engage in a ritualistic communion with spirits, stories, and suppressed histories through contemporary art. Titled "Séance: Technology of Spirit," this year's exhibition transforms Seoul's cultural spaces into a vast spiritual gathering that challenges Western rationalism and explores alternative ways of understanding the world.
The exhibition's supernatural theme becomes immediately apparent through its remarkable roster of participating artists. Nearly one-third of the featured artists are deceased, including visionary creators like Hilma af Klint, Georgiana Houghton, Onisaburo Deguchi, Emma Kunz, and Nam June Paik. During their lifetimes, these artists actively sought to communicate with otherworldly realms through their artistic practice, making them perfect subjects for this metaphysical exploration.
However, the biennale's concept of séance extends far beyond merely invoking the dead. According to curators Hallie Ayres, Anton Vidokle, and Lukas Brasiskis, the exhibition serves as a powerful metaphor for summoning back all the suppressed stories and presences that Western modern rationalism has systematically purged over centuries. This includes the supernatural, mystical, ancestral, subconscious, and transcendent elements of human experience.
The curators explain that modernity created an artificial divide between scientific thinking and spiritual practices, particularly impacting East Asia and other regions around the world. "This modernity was imposed by colonial powers, but in certain ways, spiritual practices never stopped existing; they were suppressed or pushed underground," explains curator Brasiskis. The exhibition seeks to revisit philosophies and technologies that survived outside Western colonial frameworks, revealing their disruptive and emancipatory potential that has inspired feminist, ecological, and anti-capitalist artistic visions.
Visitors entering the Seoul Museum of Art, the biennale's primary venue, encounter a striking opening image: Johanna Hedva's monumental textile prints depicting a demonic avenger entwined with snakes and holding a severed head. This powerful illustration draws from an 18th-century grimoire titled "Compendium of Demonology and Magic," whose title page bears the ominous warning "Noli me tangere" (Do not touch me). The dramatic entrance sets the tone for the entire exhibition's exploration of forbidden knowledge and suppressed traditions.
After passing through a long, dark fabric tunnel, visitors emerge into a gallery showcasing early abstract artworks that challenge conventional art historical narratives. While modern art's turn toward abstraction is typically framed as creative independence from external influences—art created purely for its own sake—these works reveal entirely different motivations. Georgiana Houghton's spirit drawings were guided by angels and saints, while Hilma af Klint's paintings were created as commissions from spiritual "High Masters." Emma Kunz's geometric diagrams functioned as tools for diagnosis and healing rather than mere aesthetic objects.
The exhibition also features the work of Onisaburo Deguchi, a Japanese mystic who co-founded the new Shinto religion Oomoto. Deguchi created thousands of handmade tea bowls, charging the clay with spiritual energy and developing an aesthetic sensibility distinct from traditional austere Raku ceramics. Decades later, Nam June Paik blurred boundaries between spiritual meditation and new media technology in his iconic "TV Buddha," where a Buddha statue contemplates its own image on a television screen fed by a live camera.
Together, these works sketch an alternative history of art where creative expression serves as a passageway and conduit to other worlds, rather than simply an end in itself. This opening section represents the biennale's conceptual and visual strength, establishing a foundation for deeper exploration of transcendence and healing throughout the rest of the exhibition.
As visitors move through the museum, they encounter artworks that delve into states of trance and altered consciousness. These pieces remind audiences that the boundaries of consciousness and reason are far more porous than conventional education suggests. Joachim Koester's video "Tarantism" exemplifies this approach by examining historical phenomena of ecstatic dance and spiritual possession.
Other works confront humanity's violent impulses, particularly our exploitation of other species and environmental destruction. Yin-Ju Chen's "Extrastellar Evaluations" views these dark threads of human history through the perspective of alien intelligence, characterizing destructive human behavior as a gross misalignment with cosmic order. This perspective offers a radical reframing of contemporary environmental and ethical crises.
Ascending to the museum's upper floors, visitors discover how these destructive tendencies might be addressed through ancestral rituals and alternative healing methods. The exhibition presents bodies being healed, spirits being recalibrated, and the artificial line between enlightenment and applied science being reconciled. This section demonstrates practical applications of spiritual technologies that the exhibition celebrates.
The final chapter of the exhibition confronts decolonial themes, highlighting the systematic destruction of Indigenous traditions under Western imperialism. This section reminds viewers that the dead—and the histories they carried—do not simply vanish with their physical bodies but continue to persist, haunting and actively shaping the contemporary world we inhabit today.
The exhibition addresses potential skepticism head-on, particularly in Korea where memories of political scandals involving presidents entangled with religious charlatans and dubious shamanistic practices have made some citizens wary of mystical themes in publicly funded exhibitions. Curator Vidokle acknowledges these concerns while defending the exhibition's approach: "Any kind of technology can be used to heal or to damage. Spiritual practices are not an exception. As much as they can carry emancipatory potential, for healing potential, we also know religion has been misused in a very damaging way. Our approach is not an endorsement of any particular practice, but an inquiry to their plurality."
Curator Ayres adds that "The exhibition also proposes to weaken the tether between spiritual practices and new obscurantism, where these practices are used toward the goals of resurgent nationalism or bolstering state projects for violent ends." This clarification positions the biennale as a critical examination rather than an uncritical celebration of spiritual practices.
Beyond the main venue at Seoul Museum of Art, the biennale extends throughout the city, transforming multiple cultural spaces into sites of artistic and spiritual exploration. Satellite exhibitions, film programs, and live performances fill Nakwon Sangga, Cinematheque Seoul Art Cinema, and Seoul Artists Platform_NewYoung, creating a truly citywide séance that engages diverse audiences across Seoul's cultural landscape.
The Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2025 continues through November 23, offering visitors multiple opportunities to participate in this unique exploration of art, spirituality, and alternative histories. The exhibition represents a bold curatorial vision that challenges conventional boundaries between rational and mystical thinking while honoring suppressed traditions from around the world.
