LONDON.- The Korean Cultural Centre UK, London presents Negotiating Borders, a new exhibition from the Real DMZ Project. Founded in 2012 by curator Sunjung Kim, the Real DMZ Project is an ongoing contemporary art project centred around research conducted on the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. Confronting the sensitivities, perceptions and realities of a divided peninsula, the exhibition features new commissions and recent works by artists, architects and academics including: Dongsei Kim, Heinkuhn OH, Joung-Ki Min, Jung Heun Kim, Kyong Park, Kyungah Ham, Lee Bul, Minouk Lim, Seung Woo Back, Seung H-Sang, Soyoung Chung, Suntag Noh, Zoh Kyung Jin & Cho Hye Ryeong.
Since its establishment in 1953, the DMZ has paradoxically been regarded as one of the world's most heavily militarised areas. With border tensions easing, and unprecedented progress in inter-Korean relations, recent measures – including the demolishing of twenty guard posts in December 2018 – can be seen as a first step towards disarmament.
Positioned within this context, the exhibition at KCCUK intertwines the conceptual pillars of time and space to link the past, present and future of the DMZ. Referencing the current situation, Kyungah Ham’s What you see is the unseen / Chandeliers for F ive Cities (2018-19) presents embroidered canvases produced anonymously by North Korean artisans. Smuggling her designs across the border, Kyungah Ham’s works bear witness to this extraordinary phase of change. Similarly engaging directly with the North and its border, works by photographers Seung Woo Back and Suntag Noh were captured during their individual trips to the region. In contrast, photographs by Heinkuhn OH focus on South Korean military soldiers. Portraying the officers as individuals, not just as a part of the military, OH’s works offer diverse perspectives on lives forced into a political situation.
Prompting enquiry into the historical context of the DMZ, Minouk Lim’s Monument 300 – Chasing Watermarks (2019) references a massacre recorded to have taken place in the DMZ’s Waterworks Center in Cheorwon. Involving the tragic, unjust death of 300 people, Lim depicts a story of which the end is unknown, inviting viewers to imagine and interpret this forgotten or concealed history. Meanwhile, the transition of time is explored in Joung-Ki Min’s 1981 and 2019 canvases, as well as Dongsei Kim’s animated film A Construct the Koreas (Never) Made Together: Deconstructing the DMZ For the Imaginary (2019), which interrogates different layers of the DMZ, including its history, function, transgression and future.
Possible future scenarios of the DMZ are considered in Project DMZ (1988), curated by Kyong Park. Following the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Park invited artists and architects to propose non-military and political uses of the DMZ. Juxtaposed with these proposals are other works that imagine future possibilities. Lee Bul envisions monuments adapted from war-related structures such as bunkers, while Seung H-Sang conceives a biodegrading monastery built for both humans and birds.
Whilst the exhibition offers a unique insight into the complexities of the Korean peninsula, research and archival material offer alternative views of the DMZ’s surroundings, encompassing themes such as landscapes, villages, military and natural bio-environment. Zoh Kyung Jin and Cho Hye Ryeong’s extensive study on the nature of the area culminates into DMZ Botanic Garden (2019), in this instance presented via postcards, books and videos. Archive photography of the military and border villages are brought together from both public institutions and personal collections, including regional residents as well as U.S. soldiers who were stationed in the area. Individual images may only document one version of the past, but as an assemblage, they reveal the complexity beneath the surface. By shedding light on these different perspectives, the exhibition prompts viewers to speculate on the future potential of the DMZ region beyond just the artistic realm.
