The team of six co-artistic directors appointed to organise the 9th Gwangju Biennale have announced the theme for their edition of the event. In a statement issued recently they say: "ROUNDTABLE allows us to reflect on our shared contemporaneity at a time when the tremendous momentum of ecological, political and economic change has radically transformed our global reality. The image of the round table is associated with political summit, where various urgent agendas are brought together and its participants convene to reach a renewal of understanding."
The six co-artistic directors are from Korea, China, Japan, Indonesia and Qatar. Nancy Adajania is a Bombay-based cultural theorist and independent curator. Wassan Al-Khudhairi is the director and chief curator at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Art, Dohan. Mami Kataoka is chief curator at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Sunjung Kim is a Seoul-based independent curator and professor at Korea National University of Arts. Carol Yinghua Lu is an art critic and curator who works in Beijing and is also a contributing editor for Frieze. Alia Swastika is a curator, project manager and writer based in Jakarta.
The 9th Gwangju Biennale runs from 7 September - 11 November 2012.