The Butterflies of Andokbul

Public installation, digital portrait - Printed paper, projection installation, custom computer vision technology. Cheong ju, Korea. In conjunction with Cheongju Biennale (2015).

Artwork installation : The Bite Back Movement (Alexander Augustus / Seung youn Lee).

Computer vision engineer : Jack Greenhalgh.

This artwork was a commission to commemorate the workers who were laid off from a Cheongju Cigarette factory in South Korea in the 80s. Whilst exploring the abandoned factory we pulled open a desk drawer and found the 88 ID cards from the laid-off workers. We merged their headshots together to create a face from the memory of this building. As with A Dangerous Figure, this technique kept their anonymity, but put a face to the spirit of the story.

The installation spans over 58 meters long, with a total of 365 faces. This is our homage to the unsung workers who kept the city of Cheongju afloat year after year, through war, financial crisis and rapid industrialisation.

In the interior of the factory, the face quietly merges over and over again into different forms, men and women of the office and factory floor. Simultaneously in an audio installation the voices of these workers describe their time working in this building, memories of joy, difficulty, politics and dreams.