Korean artist Kim Seung Young has designed a multi-faceted exhibition populated with fifty ancient stone arhats with lifelike expressions, from joy and serenity to anger and sorrow: the gamut of human emotion; and one representation of Buddha. Arhats, believed to be between 600 and 1000 years old, are figurative stone statues representing the 500 disciples of Buddha who wrote Buddha’s words into scriptures after the enlightened one reached nirvana. The immersive installation hosts a tower of more than 1,000 audio speakers that fill the space with an urban soundscape created by sound designer Oh Yoonseok and cast a meditative distraction from the hustle and bustle of daily life.
Five Hundred Arhats of Changnyeongsa Temple 창령사 터 오백나한. Photograph: Zan Wimberley. Courtesy Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney
Powerhouse Museum
2 December 2021 to 15 May 2022
Sydney
