Kim Yesul, Push off exercise equipment, 2023, skateboards, mixed media, 300x300x120cm. Installation view of 《stocker》 (SeMA Storage, 2023) © Kim Yesul

Last April, the remains of a ballistic missile fired by Russian forces were discovered at Kramatorsk railway station in eastern Ukraine. On the body of the missile, the phrase “For the Children” was written in Cyrillic letters. Of course, no one thought this incident had truly taken place out of concern for children, and the media analyzed it as a message of revenge.

In fact, it is nothing new for a state to put children at the forefront while speaking of a greater cause, or to mobilize children for national events. The images of child soldiers to which we have been exposed are too numerous to count one by one.

It is not children but adults who make political statements about systems, yet when adults want to leave a strong impression, they effectively place children at the front. Children, who have neither voting rights nor opportunities to speak, are used every time.

Kim Yesul’s Ironclad Rookie God Fragger(2023) follows the main narrative of sekai-kei animation. Seoyeon and Minjun, who appear as the protagonists, are ordinary, but due to external factors they come to pilot machines, and there is no choice in the matter.

Seoyeon enjoys coding and computing with her father, who develops microchips that protect Earth, while Minjun wants to join the project of his father, who is pursuing a project to destroy Earth. Within the system built by adults, children learn coding, manipulate robots, and seek either to save or destroy the world. In that they are agents of their fathers, they also appear, at first glance, as child soldiers.


Kim Yesul, Art Class, 2021, Video, color, sound, 4min 39sec. © Kim Yesul

The being who sings the song “Art Class,” written by the artist in Art Class(2021), is also a child. Eleven children stand in formation on stage and, together with choreographed movements, convey the weight and distance of art as felt by Kim Yesul.

Although the content of the lyrics and the intention of the song are different, the image of children singing a song written by an adult somehow recalls the phenomenon in which children who lived through the 1970s and 1980s learned the “Saemaeul Song” that was played at specific times.

Children who learned anti-communist songs without properly knowing their meaning can still unconsciously recite those songs 50 years later, after becoming middle-aged. Seeing this makes one flinch, as if it proves that music can be an effective means of educating children in state ideology.


Kim Yesul, The Chambers, 2019, Mixed media, Installation variable © Kim Yesul

Meanwhile, what stands out in the archival video of the work The Chambers(2019), which was probably not made with children in mind, is also children.

The artist turned on a faucet on the fifth floor of the Democracy and Human Rights Memorial Hall(formerly the Namyeong-dong Anti-Communist Investigation Office), connected a hose between the windows, and staged a situation in which visitors entering and leaving the building could not avoid being hit by falling water.

During the dictatorship, the faucet on the fifth floor was used for water torture against political prisoners, and that faucet still works today. Unlike adults, who know what kind of place the building was and what the water meant, children who knew nothing ran around happily, avoiding the falling water.

Kim Yesul said that she was glad because the children liked it, and expressed that she also liked the fact that public art, which someone might dismiss as hideous, could become an element of fun for children.

The artist shared that a question asked by 13-year-old Daphne at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting in the United States on May 6 stayed in her mind. In a situation where the beginning of de-dollarization, in which the dollar may lose its status as the global reserve currency, seems visible, applause broke out when she asked what American citizens should do. Is that all?

Books teaching children about stocks are pouring out, and we are witnessing the spectacle of Rich Dad Poor Dad becoming a bestseller that has sold 40 million copies worldwide. In this chilling situation, what are we doing “for the children”? Because children have been pushed aside by established generations, they are rarely recorded in history.

Attention now turns to how Kim Yesul will reappear in her new work by borrowing the voices of the next generation, who will be most affected by the policies made by established generations.

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