본 연구는 관객 참여를 전시 생산 과정의 전면에 내세운 2012 부산비엔날레 《배움의 정원》 을 질적 연구의 방법인 에스노그라피를 활용하여 분석한다. 전시 생산 과정에 대한 참여 관찰과 심층 면담을 바탕에 두고 본 연구는 이 전시의 관객 참여 집단인 배움위원회가 전시 감독과 함께 전시의 방향성과 디스플레이의 방식에 대해 고민하고, 작가의 작품 제작 과정에 개입하며, 전시 개막 수개월 전부터 겪었던 다양한 경험을 바탕으로 교육 프로그램을 직접 계획하고 실행하는 모습을 되짚었다. 따라서 본 연구는 배움위원회가 전시 생산 과정의 ‘공동 창조자’로서의 역할을 수 행했음을 확인하며, 《배움의 정원》에서 구현된 관객 참여는 피상적인 구호나 개념에 그치는 것이 아니라 전시라는 매개체를 통해 서로 다른 사람들이 관계를 형성하고 ‘지금’의 이야기를 ‘여기’에서 만들고 공유할 수 있도록 도와주는 큐레토리얼 실천이었음을 논한다.

This paper examines two key elements of “contraction” and “expansion” in relation to the way in which Wonil Rhee used space in his curatorial practice. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze’s notion of "the fold (le pli)" in a close reading of one of his last texts published in 2010, it explores the implication of the elements in the theoretical context of Rhee's curatorial practice. Along with such concepts as “postcolonialism,” “Asianness,” “technology,” and “creative paradox,” the elements serve to deconstruct confrontations between west/non-west, the cultural colonizer/the cultural colonized, thereby challenging conventional boundaries. The logic of resistance and confrontation in Rhee's early curatorial practice has gradually given way to that of “hybridization, openness, intersection, assimilation, conciliation, and communication” through metaphors such as “thermocline” and “poktanju” (bomb drink; a kind of cocktail comparable to American boilermaker), which he addressed in the exhibition at ZKM in 2007. This show provided a turning point presenting the “pocket model,” that Rhee drew from Deleuze's concept of the fold. Analyzing the exhibitions Rhee curated after the ZKM show, this paper delves into the notion of flexible space, which constantly oscillates between “contraction” and “expansion,” a space that operates like the fold of Deleuze. There is a cycle of innumerable inflection in the world of the fold, creating decentralized, uncertain, and diverse spaces. The inside of the fold is the space of potentiality where differences keep arising but are not realized. This space is after all realized from potential space through the systemization and rearrangement of time. The fold is like the “organ without the body” or the “egg.” This paper suggests that Rhee’s “thermocline” or the “pocket model” unfolds the movement of creation where the fold transforms itself through a repetition of “contraction” and “expansion.”