Park Yong-seok
Busan Modernism / Seoul Modernism, 2001, C-print, Drawing

 Park Yong-seok
Busan Modernism / Seoul Modernism, 2001, C-print, Drawing


I started this piece with a question of “Why is the water tank in Seoul yellow?” As I figured out, yellow is not institutionalized by law, but derived from custom. In a tank factory I was told, “Yellow? Well, it has been always painted like that.” It is now natural that yellow is linked to a color of water tank, and then it becomes a new standard. I am interested in this hidden system. Busan has blue water tanks so that I expended my project to Busan. In comparing both metropolitan areas, yellow and blue become local colors. I was told that there was a reason that blue water tanks in Busan were considered unique. In fact there are many blue tanks in Busan. However there was a project to change all the other water tanks that used to be another color into blue as a part of a public service supported by the city of Busan. This was because blue helps prevent the spread of germs by blocking light more than lighter colors do. “But why should if be blue?” I asked someone. That person smiled and said, “Because Busan is a city of the sea.” As for me, I read a water tank as a sort of street furniture of coordinates of a city.