October 18, 2021
Korea’s Demilitarized Zone Hosts Major Exhibition. Works by over 30 artists including Haegue Yang, Francis Alÿs, and Nam June Paik are now showing in a guard post, two train stations, and a dedicated cultural center.
Source. 2021 DMZ Art & Peace Platform
Artistic Director, Yeon Shim Chung said
The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a fortified border barrier instituted by
the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953, has left the devastated South and North
divided for decades since the Korean War (1950-1953). This extensive 150 miles
long and 2.5 miles wide border spans the Korean Peninsula, with concertina wire
fences on both sides. It is a physical scar left on the land, a place where the
brutal memories of war linger but are also redefined. Civilian entry into the
DMZ is limited for safety reasons, and the decrease in human activity has
naturally preserved the region’s ecosystem. However, the numerous undiscovered
landmines in the DMZ still pose a real threat in the seemingly peaceful
landscape. This exhibition attempts to construct peace and ecology zones to
re-envision Korea’s DMZ, which is currently a symbol of division and war. It
also seeks to establish art communities in the DMZ to commemorate the
painful memories of the past.
The 2021 DMZ Art & Peace Platform
employs five different venues in and around the DMZ: UniMARU, which is located
within the Inter-Korean Transit Office; Dorasan Station and Guard Post in Paju
City; Jejin Station in Goseong County; and the National Institute for Unification
Education in Seoul. Of these, UniMARU is a special art space newly renovated by
leading architect Hyunjun Mihn in spring 2021. Its name is formed from the
words unification and platform (maru in Korean), which describe its aim to
transform the former Inter-Korean Transit Office building (entry-exit control
office) into a platform for unification. Each exhibition site embodies the
concepts of unification and peace, ecology and sustainability, connection and
solidarity, interaction and expansion. The DMZ Art & Peace Platform
rang-ing from the west coast of Paju to the east coast of Goseong travels to
the globe, going beyond borders via an online platform.
Thirty-two internationally acclaimed South
Korea and abroad artists are participating in the exhibition 2021 DMZ Art &
Peace Platform, highlighting narratives of the DMZ’s past, present, and future,
transforming the zone into a new “contact zone” – a borderless peace zone.
Participants feature diverse subjects such as ordinary people and their daily lives
on the border between South and North; the “deferred memories” of displaced
people and the war images, represented by Millennials, Generation Z, and the
post-war generation that did not live through the Korean War; invoking the
names of endangered species to heal spirits; pondering the coexistence of
environment and technology during the pandemic and climate crises. The border
is there, acting as a barrier, yet the artistic imagination and desire for
peace in the DMZ will always be as borderless as birds, wind, water, and grass.
Borderless DMZ.
The exhibition continues until 15 November.
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