Summersnowglobalism 써머스노글로벌리즘

The artistic research project Summersnowglobalism unfolds as a ‘queer’ snow globe, inside of which decaying rice grains float through a microbial admixture inspired by brewing dongdong-ju, a type of rice wine, named after a Korean sound-symbolic word, dongdong (동동).

The project engages transmedia artworks and material experimentation at its core to explore the entanglement of vision and touch as the foundations of knowledge.

Image: The transmedia artwork Summersnowglobalism, a performative installation, incorporates the process of creating fermentation starters on a microbial medium made from poplar fluff, along with the brewing of dongdongju.

Image: Poplar fluff tagged as snow in a petri dish.

Emphasizing the tactility of ‘summer snow’—the early-summer fluff of poplar trees, once mobilized in Mao-era forestry campaigns and later tied to urban modernization—it serves here as a microbial medium.

Image: China’s Poplar Trees: A Spring Nuisance That Snows White Fluff. The New York Times, 2017. Photo: David Gray. Reuters; Poplar fluff photographed on a lightbox.

Image: A snow globe model containing a miniature poplar tree.

Image: Summersnowglobalism, 2022, performative installation, Photo: Dongryung Han; poplar seed collection net, microbial medium and nuruk (fermentation starter) incubator based on poplar fluff, bottled poplar fluff and leaves, dongdongju brewing process, dongdongju jar with floating rice grains, snow globe containing a miniature poplar tree, display of particulate materials tagged as snow.

Summersnowglobalism returns to the image of rice grains drifting in fermentation, their slow disintegration recalling the snowfall staged inside a globe. The Korean sound-symbolic word dongdong, which evokes the floating rhythm of grains, becomes here more than metaphor: it signals an embodied way of sensing, where language, matter, and sound intertwine. In this unreal yet microbial reality, the installation gestures toward a living world in formation—fragile, suspended, and open to reimagining worldings otherwise.

Summersnowglobalism
써머스노글로벌리즘

2022

Development supported by Arts Council Korea (ARKO) through the 2022 Art & Technology Convergence Grant

Exhibition:
◦ Groundless: Interplay (2023). Group exhibition at SomoS Arts Berlin during 48 Stunden Neukölln Festival, supported by Paulus Fugers.

Academic Publication:
◦ Park, Dawoon (2025): Summersnowglobalism. In: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Electronic/Emerging Art: 2025, Seoul, Republic of Korea, Art Center Nabi / Institute for Culture and Arts, Seoul National University, pp. 1226–1227. https://data.doi.or.kr/10.23362/KOEN2025.07.25.3.197
◦ Park, Dawoon (2024): Summersnowglobalism – A Real-Life Snow Globe Making with Summer Snow and Snow Globe Where Rice Grains Decompose and Fall like Snow through the Metabolic Process of Microorganisms. In: the Dynamic Archive, curated by Prof. Dr. Andrea Sick, edited by Marcela Antipán Olate. https://doi.org/10.26017/tda-666