This exhibit investigates the historic and contemporary geographies of diaspora communities and transnational migrant workers in Korea and across Asia. While subjected to the enduring colonial legacy of subjugated and racialized laboring bodies and extremely precarious work and living conditions, the ostensibly transient global subjects shape and embody emergent and hyper-local spatial typologies, new socialities, and potently intersectional cultural and agentive capacities. Intimately engaging the specifics of selected peri-urban and rural migrant enclaves, the exhibit speculates on the possibilities of future communities shaped by the new frameworks of labor and belonging. Interrogating the global landscapes of capital-driven migrancy, the project challenges the existing notions of work, identity, and ownership, in the context of collective crises, of climate change and other dissolution of environmental and sociopolitical givens.

David Eugin Moon is a partner of N H D M, a New York-based practice for design and research in architecture and urbanism, and an adjunct associate professor at Columbia, GSAPP. N H D M’s work, often in a direct dialogue with the cultural, political, and economic complexities of the contemporary built environment, has been presented at global venues, including the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at 2021 Venice Biennale, the 2019 Seoul Biennale, the 5th and 6th Rotterdam Biennale, the 14th International Architecture Exhibition at 2014 Venice Biennale, University of Michigan Museum of Art Stenn Gallery, and Storefront for Art and Architecture, among others. Until founding N H D M, Moon practiced in offices in the US, Europe, and Asia, and as a key designer at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam and New York. He holds a master's degree in architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Nahyun Hwang is a partner of N H D M, a New York-based practice for design and research in architecture and urbanism, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia, GSAPP. The work of NHDM pursues an expanded practice of architecture across disciplinary borders and modes of output and has been recognized through publications and awards including the 2020 Architectural Record Design Vanguard, the 2018 AIANY New Practices New York award, 2012, 2014, and 2018 AIANY Design Honor Awards. Until founding N H D M, Hwang practiced as a Senior Associate at James Corner Field Operations and as the Lead Project Designer for the High Line, and previously at Stan Allen Architects; Herzog & de Meuron; and OMA. Hwang holds a master's degree in Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, and is a recipient of Muschenheim fellowship and the New York State Council of Arts Grant.