[Interview] From Seoul to the World: How a Local Art Initiative Became an International Community

If you are an art lover, a creative thinker, or an independent maker in Seoul, you may already have heard of Hechyeomoyeo (HCMY), an international, community-driven art collective. Founded in Seoul in 2023, HCMY creates exhibitions where art curious, experienced practitioners, and first-time exhibitors from Korea and abroad can share the same space.

Yet HCMY is not simply about giving more artists visibility. By moving away from conventional selection criteria based on experience, reputation, or artistic style, the collective questions the mechanisms through which the art world assigns access, legitimacy, and value.

In an interview with HCMY’s founder, Neil Wheelock Deforest Smith, we explored what happens when an exhibition stops deciding who or what deserves to be recognized as art.

Before creating HCMY, how did you personally view the Korean art scene as an artist and curator?

Three or four years ago, with no real experience in the art scene, I saw the South Korean art world as exclusive. Everyone I met who was an artist seemed to agree that it was nearly impossible to enter galleries. Even open calls required submission and selection based on criteria that felt invisible. It all seemed so complicated.

Now, however, I see that these dynamics exist everywhere, and I better understand the pressures that exhibition organizers face.

Before HCMY, I used to walk into galleries in Apgujeong and ask how I could have a show. I wish I could still be so innocent and naive. But when people say the art scene is impossible to break into while only considering high-end contemporary galleries, they overlook the broader art scene. There is always somewhere willing, it just might not be the place we imagined.

We don’t have criteria determining who can come and experiment with the identity of an artist.

What did Seoul make possible for HCMY that another city might not have?

Timing had a lot to do with it. HCMY started just after COVID, when restrictions in South Korea had caused many third spaces to disappear. Both Koreans and foreigners were looking for somewhere to go and be.

Seoul’s public transportation also makes it easy for people to move around, but most importantly, Seoul is an art capital where many interesting things are happening culturally. The city has an incredible population of talented makers, artists and creative people, many of whom had experienced rejection while trying to exhibit their work. HCMY offered them another possibility.

I also noticed that many foreigners wanted to share spaces with Koreans, and many Koreans wanted the same. Having a shared medium, in our case art, made it easier for them to connect.

How does HCMY define an artist?

This has been tricky from the beginning. Many people I consider artists would feel uncomfortable with that title, so HCMY doesn’t require someone to identify as an artist to participate. They can simply be ‘art-curious.’ Sometimes we say ‘creatives’ instead of artists, although I do like the idea of an ‘Open Call for Humans.’

I think ‘artist’ can be a fluid identity. In my own experience, I didn’t realize I was making art until it was too late.. the identity came afterward. Some people gain confidence by performing that identity, whether by joining an exhibition or meeting other artists like themselves. If someone feels inspired to write a poem, they don’t need to consider themselves a poet first. They can simply do it.

Who gets to decide what deserves to be called art, and how does HCMY challenge that idea ?

I don’t know if anyone gets to decide on some ultimate, cosmic level. A gallery hosting an exhibition has the right to decide who fits within that exhibition. People may interpret rejection as an attack on their identity, but it doesn’t have to be.

At the same time, I think an art space can pose the question differently. This is where HCMY comes in. We don’t have criteria determining who can come and experiment with the identity of an artist. Someone can simply enter the space and do ‘artist things’ without being designated as an artist beforehand.

The difficulty arises when people feel deep down that they might be artists, but none of the spaces allowing them to explore that identity will accept them. But this isn’t unique to South Korea, it’s a reality everywhere I have been.

HCMY embraces artistic freedom and openness. How does this approach change the experience of visiting an exhibition?

Exhibitions can feel like a dentist’s office [laughs]. I understand that the focus is on the artworks, but they can feel stuffy, sterile and genuinely uninviting. They can also feel ‘done’, as though everything has already been written and decided. A museum can be a mausoleum. A gallery, a collection of coffins.

People have come to HCMY and told me that it feels alive, like witnessing something that is still becoming. I wanted to create a space where someone could feel that they, too, could make a place for themselves in the art world, that there was some kind of future. Hopefully, they leave realizing that there is at least one space they can enter. And it’s not that serious. Just put the painting on the wall.

What changes when an exhibition no longer selects artists according to their experience, reputation or artistic style?

Well, it gets crazy.. but I have never been disappointed. Some people have suggested that allowing anyone to exhibit is the equivalent of everyone getting a trophy. So when an artist says, ‘I want an exhibition,’ sometimes what they really mean is, ‘I want an exhibition in a space that doesn’t give other people one, because that will give me validation and status.’

HCMY definitely isn’t after prestige. If we are, we are failing miserably.

For me, the value of a space lies in its unpredictability: chance meetings, new collaborations and simply the opportunity to do something. I don’t think an artwork’s primary value has to be financial; I see its potential to connect people and communities.

I have seen some wild things: writing on sticky notes, a painted skateboard, a LEGO diorama, garbage stitched together and a T-shirt taped to the wall. When these things exist beside one another, they reveal the diversity of expression.

A community needs diversity and something that unifies it. In our case, that is art. You make something, come along and see what happens. 

Does HCMY accept every artist and artwork, or are there still certain boundaries?

Oh yeah. We have very rarely had to restrict something, and the artist usually understands. First, it depends on the space and its rules. We recently organized an exhibition with about 115 artists in a café in my hometown in Connecticut. I wouldn’t display something extreme in a local café. It’s not about free speech; someone who simply wants a cup of coffee hasn’t consented to seeing challenging images. These spaces are cool enough to let us enter, so we consider them first.

This is not about censorship. It is about understanding what we are trying to do. We want people, including families and children, to feel excited about coming together and sharing art.

Also AI has created a particularly divisive conversation. At our exhibition in Mexico, two out of 326 artists submitted AI-generated images, and some people were very upset. Personally, looking at AI art can feel like looking at a plastic hamburger: it doesn’t make me hungry. But perhaps if someone who considers themselves an AI artist becomes part of an artistic community, everyone can have that conversation together.

I like to imagine myself as some kind of punk-rock cowboy, but I also understand how important it is to preserve the project. If something threatens it, we at least need to have a conversation. I never make these decisions alone: I speak first with the artist, then with members of the community, and put those perspectives together.

When did you realize that HCMY was becoming more than a local exhibition in Seoul? 

Our first exhibition included about six artists from Malaysia. I had visited Kuala Lumpur a week before the opening and told some people I met that if they gave me drawings or photographs, I would put them in the show. So HCMY was international from the beginning.

By our third exhibition, we had around 180 participants. I remember thinking, ‘Whoa..what are we going to do?’ Afterward, I flew to Bangkok and found a space there. Once we held that first exhibition outside Korea, I realized we could probably do this anywhere.

But regardless of where we go, most participants are local, exhibiting alongside works sent from around the world. Local and international are not a binary: international artists can give local artists a reason to come together. I simply let HCMY go where it goes and follow it along.

Could Seoul become the permanent center of a wider international HCMY network?

If you ask me, the Hechyeomoyeo belongs to Korea. That’s where it happened. I think some people plan and pick a place and launch a gallery or platform. That wasn’t my experience. I still don’t know what hechyeomoyeo is doing. In this way, it feels organic, natural. And I just don’t know if any of this would have happened if I wasn't in Korea. I'm not sure if I would even be making art. 

What I think we need is some kind of support. But, maybe it doesn’t need that. If the president of Korea gave us some money and a building, well it would kinda change things, no? Maybe for good, maybe for bad. I’m not sure. 

It’s up to the people. If they wanna keep doing it, it will happen. Regardless of whether it’s even hechyeomoyeo.

As HCMY continues to expand internationally, what would you like it to retain from its beginnings in Seoul?

I just want it to be real. It’s nice that it even happens. My experience on Earth has been polluted with parades, masquerades and layer upon layer of nothing going on. It’s nice to be part of something that feels human.

During the first exhibition, I was living in a goshiwon and taking the bus to Gunja every day to sit in an unmanned gallery. Artists showed up to hang the work and make the flyers. People played music for free. Countless strangers gave their time to make this thing happen. Real people.

For our New York exhibition, the volunteers and I planned to sleep in the gallery. When my mom offered to get us an Airbnb, I hated the idea. We were supposed to be cowboys, punk rockers, independent go-getters. Then someone told me that accepting my mom’s help was the most punk-rock thing we could do. It was real.

Nothing needs to happen except what is supposed to happen. I couldn’t stop that if I tried.

After its exhibition in Dublin, HCMY will return to Seoul on November 4, continuing to welcome artists from around the world in the city where it all began.