“Negotiating Borders” at Korean Cultural Centre UK looks at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing Korea – a passage of countryside, 248 kilometres long but only 4 kilometres wide. For over 66 years, since the armistice that ended the Korean War, it has been a troubling interface, embodying both the potential for concord between diametrical regimes and the seeming impossibility of such détente. A territory of imagination and hope, as well as of confrontation and discord, the exhibition titled “Negotiating Borders”, organised by the Real DMZ Project, was an enticing prospect foreshadowed by diplomatic meetings at the Freedom House at Panmunjom. These meetings, between presidents Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump, along with representatives of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and South Korea, promised improved tolerance and understanding, but have not, so far, succeeded in revoking historical antagonisms.
New York-based Dongsei Kim’s animated video A Construct The Koreas (Never) Made Together Deconstructing the DMZ For The Imaginary (2014) introduces the exhibition in the foyer area. The video comprises informative texts superimposed on a map. These flash up with urgent brevity, making the words hard to evaluate. Sections outline several ecological themes, river flow and migration patterns, some touched on in other works on show. The sequence’s opening line scrolls to read: “Like the obscure North Korea behind the veil.” The North is imminently represented as unknown, incomprehensible and supplementary. The word ‘veil’ suggests that obscurity may be a choice made by those who cover themselves, or that the DMZ is a soft barrier, not the line drawn in red by warring factions. The final part of the animation details the numbers of defectors, from obscurity to the South, leaving no doubt that the line is one all free things yearn to transgress.
A grid of images, too complex to quickly assimilate, greets the visitor to the first salon. Seung Woo Back’s Blow-Up (2005 – 7) comprises enigmatic photographs taken in the DPRK. Like their titular namesake, Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 thriller movie, the images concentrate attention on overlooked details in the background. The photos are mainly generic views taken on a supervised visit of Pyongyang. The camera’s touristic gaze sweeps unsuspecting passers-by into the frame. Most appear to be engaged in everyday activities – going for a run, enjoying a view or passing on a bus. These glimpses of different lives are juxtaposed with idealised images of Kim Jong Un and of ordinary people, whose faces have been chosen to represent good citizens – the equivalents of China’s selfless and modest partisan revolutionary Li Fen.
A similar strategy is deployed in Noh Suntag’s photographic series Red House I (2005), images of legions of regimented gymnasts participating in DPRK synchronised performances. Large-scale and highly detailed, the photographs invite the spectator to engage with individual faces. Telephoto views, seen as if surveilled from a watchtower, link these detached reports of life on the other side to the guard-posted borderland.
Rendering the far off in another way, Kyungah Ham’s works comprise commissioned hand embroideries made by artisans based in the DPRK. The images themselves have the appearance of glitchy screen grabs from analogue video; they show operatic chandeliers fallen to the ground in a warm, inky void. Rather than thinking of people methodically realising the embroideries in exact accordance with instructions, the viewer is intended to read them in terms of obstruction, the organisation needed to get them done. Thus they vacillate, between inviting intimacy with, and repelling the subjectivity of, the craftspeople who made them – emphasising seclusion. In a note, provided in translation in an exhibition booklet, Ham evokes pathos, highlighting the silence of DPRK artists: “the crafts people encounter the world as unseen beings who nevertheless exist behind each and every stich of the chandelier they made.”
Other ideas adhere more closely to the DMZ theme. Lee Bul proposed new structures to be erected on the foundations of abandoned buildings. Soyoung Chung’s Watchhouse (2019) used the human scale of a guard post. Its structure supports netted frames. These can be adjusted to hide a person without impeding their reconnaissance. The resulting work has the appearance of a maquette, perhaps for a monument to occlusion. Seung H-Sang provides plans for a monastery that will also be a sanctuary for birds. Kyong Park and Zoh Kyung Jin / Cho Hye Ryeong’s project is to document the plants that flourish in the habitats along the border. They address the potential of the strip as a natural preserve, saved from human intrusion. Flora and fauna show that this is not a single place, but a part of many places.
Bodies, hidden beneath military canvas tarpaulins, are tucked in an alcove at the back of the gallery. They form part of Minouk Lim’s installation Monument 300-Chasing Watermarks (2014 – 2019). The work continues on a performance video showing participants with flashlights at the location of the Cheorwon Waterworks, now a Cultural Heritage site. They are using the torches to look for 300 frozen body parts in the snow. The bodies commemorate 300 Japanese collaborators allegedly assassinated at the waterworks early in the Korean War. The event is detailed on a sign at the entrance. Still, Lim’s research failed to uncover any tangible evidence or survivor testament relating to the atrocity, although he does not go so far as to suggest that the story could be wartime propaganda.
This Zone, like the ambiguous restricted area in Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie Stalker (1979), promises revelation but ultimately proves to be a chimera. Rather than celebrating liminality, the exhibition mainly presents the DMZ as a barrier to be breached by artifice. In this scenario, even nature has to capitulate and become a vehicle to underscore stifled growth, impeded movement and the unnatural society of the DPRK. With only artists from South Korea, viewpoints, while liberal-minded, make a claustrophobic narrative.
Andrew Stooke
Andrew Stooke is an artist, researcher and writer based in Shanghai and London. Instagram @stookeandrew
“Negotiating Borders” from The Real DMZ Project is on view from 1 October to 23 November 2019 at the Korean Cultural Centre UK, London.