Yoonhwan Jeon(AND Theatre)

Yoonhwan Jeon and AND Theater, raising sharp topics in Korean society.
The series of works performed by Yoonhwan Jeon and AND Theater is noteworthy in that they have been exploring various theatrical methodologies to mediate reality while recognizing the contemporaneity of documentary theater. He reproduces his own narratives of how he engages in theater making in his daily life, in a meta-theatrical way where he crosses and erases the boundaries between play and reality.
Through the Theater with Site Pattern series (2015~2018), which was developed to discover unique patterns of a 'site' in a region, he explored approaching a 'place' as a documentary. This effort resulted in a site-specific theater performance in which the audience moved together with the performers through city spaces. As the historical, cultural, socioeconomic, geography and topographical exploration and study of the city are added to, and overlapped with the narratives constructed by the moving audience, a new spatial experience was created between the past and the present, reality and fiction, performance and walking as a form of a more realistic sensation. In addition, a similar experience can be seen in Theater for Sale (2020), a piece developed when theaters were shut down and performances were being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The work was inspired from a fun little idea of selling the theater if performances cannot be put on stage anyway. In it, an audience member chooses one story out of four that are narrated in the perspectives of director, producer, actor, stage director, and audience, then watches a video accordingly while walking in and out of the theater alone. Between the recorded video images and walking in the present time, flowing and rupturing sensations remind us of how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed daily lives intensely, and that leaves a very strong impression.

Currently, Yoonhwan Jeon runs the artist residency ‘Space And’ in Ganghwa-do. He is also the host of the “Island for a while Theater Festival'' where artists are invited to perform on the island where he lives.