Artist-barista makes an offer: A brew for what you drew

Artist Chun Geun-sung operates a cafe in a Seoul museum where visitors pay for coffee with drawings instead of money, part of a public art project exploring nonmonetary exchange and human connection in the age of AI. The project, co-hosted by Arko Art Center, has attracted over 100 participants and aims to build relationships and community through creative barter.

Artist Chun Geun-sung challenges conventional notions of market exchange and explores the value of human connection in the age of AI On a Wednesday afternoon at a cafe hidden inside a museum in Seoul, visitors pay not with cash or cards, but with drawings. When a mother and daughter order two cups of coffee, they are handed blank sheets of paper instead of a receipt. As they sip, the pages gradually fill with colorful sketches. By the time the drinks are finished, so are the drawings — their payment for the coffee. "Honestly, we came in because we heard the coffee was free," said Joo, who visited the cafe with her daughter, an office worker in her 20s. "I hadn't drawn anything since elementary school, and it brought back a lot of childhood memories." Other visitors sat nearby with their smartphones aside, their faces lowered toward the pages before them. The cafe was part of a public art experiment by the barista, artist Chun Geun-sung. The public art project, titled the “Drawing-for-Coffee Cafe” and co-hosted by Arko Art Center in Daehangno, Seoul, explores the power of nonmonetary exchange to build relationships and community. “When money changes hands, the relationship often ends there. But exchanges outside the monetary system can create new connections,” Chun explained. “If someone feels they received more than they gave, they may want to give more the next time. They also tend to remember one another’s faces and needs more clearly. The project grew out of my interest in how relationships can expand.” The project has been held twice since its launch on June 5 in the museum's visitor lounge, attracting more than 100 participants. The drawings created in exchange for coffee now line the walls, where they will remain on display through Sunday. The cafe is part of "Artist's Room," an audience engagement program launched by the museum in April. Designed to bring artists and visitors into closer contact, the program aims to lower barriers to museum participation through hands-on interactions with a featured artist. "Rather than passively viewing art, visitors become part of the creative process. By seeing, hearing and experiencing an artist's ideas firsthand, they can develop a deeper appreciation for both the artwork and the process behind it," a museum staffer said. Neither side came to the project as an expert. Chun was new to coffee making, while many visitors had little or no experience with drawing. Yet this shared lack of expertise served as an icebreaker. Chun chatted with visitors about their drawings, visitors complimented the coffee, and the artist poured extra samples of other brews. By the time they pinned their artwork to the walls together, strangers had become familiar faces. Coffee is just one of the many items Chun has exchanged for drawings through his public art projects. Since last year, he has traveled across the country in what he calls the "art-for-everything truck," a vehicle loaded with fruits, vegetables and household goods. Chun's art-for-goods exchanges have created connections across generations and social backgrounds, from toddlers to seniors. "One elderly passerby who needed tomatoes found himself drawing for the first time in decades. A boy who rarely spoke proudly introduced his drawing and received a piece of candy in return. You wouldn't get those kinds of encounters through money alone," he said. A project born of a chance encounter Chun's artistic exploration of human connection grew out of an unexpected encounter in 2022, after his son, now 5, was born. Back then, pushing a stroller to a nearby park from his home in Huam-dong near Seoul Station was part of Chun's daily routine, as were the groups of homeless people who he passed along the way. Until then, the people had been little more than part of the background. But things changed when a man greeted him warmly with, "Happy New Year." Chun found himself wondering what had brought the people there and what hardships they faced. The following year, Chun was invited to participate in a public art project, which he saw as an opportunity to answer some of his questions. Titled "My Homeless Neighbors," the project involved providing homeless people with food and daily necessities in exchange for portraits they drew of the artist. What began with a marginalized community eventually grew into a broader project involving local merchants and everyday citizens. From Seoul to Busan and Jeju, his projects have brought exchange-based public art to communities across the country. But Chun was not always a public artist. After studying sculpture at Dongguk University's College of Arts, he built a career in installation art. Yet the distance he felt between artist and audience left him searching for a more reciprocal form of making art. "Much like in social welfare programs, the relationship in exhibitions and public art projects is often one sided. You put up a work on a street or in a museum, and after that, the artist is basically gone," he said. "I wanted the exchange to go both ways, and over time I've felt an even stronger pull toward a more reciprocal form of art making." Chun believes his work taps into a broader longing for genuine human connection amid an increasingly AI-driven and automated world. "We once brought the art-for-everything truck to Ulsan, and people traveled all the way from Busan just to take part. At a time when tools like ChatGPT and Nano Banana can create almost anything for you, why would people still make the effort to show up?" he said. "The answer, I think, is that people are looking for something machines can't replicate — real human connection and experiences that make them feel more human." cjh@heraldcorp.com