Choi Gene Uk was born in Seoul and earned his BFA in Painting from Seoul National University in 1981, followed by an MFA in Painting from The George Washington University in 1984. Since returning to Korea, he has worked primarily in painting, after serving as a professor in the Department of Western Painting at Chugye University for the Arts. He has since retired and continues his work as an artist with a primary focus on painting.
Poster image of 《REAL DMZ PROJECT 2015:
Lived Time of Dongsong》 © REAL DMZ PROJECT
The REAL DMZ PROJECT Committee is pleased to present
the 《REAL
DMZ PROJECT 2015: Lived Time of Dongsong》. From August 13th to
23rd, 2015, this contemporary art festival will take place in multiple sites
around the downtown of Dongsong, the DMZ border area in Cheorwon-gun,
Gangwon-do, such as shops, a Catholic church, and a bus terminal. Based on the
regional identity of Dongsong, this year’s project delves into how the DMZ
infiltrates not only the life of the DMZ border area, but also even our
ordinary lives.
The title of the exhibition, ‘Lived Time of Dongsong’,
signifies the ‘time and history of Dongsong, Cheorwon,’ from the founding of
the district in 1914 under the name Dongsong-myeon, to its assigning to North
Korea in 1945 upon liberation from Japanese occupation, and to its being
reclaimed by South Korea after the ceasefire of the Korean War in 1953. For this
exhibition, fifty-two participants, including artists, architects, poets, and
professionals in the cultural field, intend to present works of various forms
which address the history and meaning of the DMZ and the regionality of
Dongsong within a contemporary context.
Located 10km from the Southern Limit Line and 5km from the Civilian
Control Line, Dongsong is the most populated commercial and cultural center in
Cheorwon. Because it is an area where ordinary residents and soldiers who are
stationed at nearby military bases live every day, it might not evoke the
tension often associated with the DMZ. However, it is a place where
army-related facilities, military influence, and vestiges of the Cold War
ideologies still exist.
The REAL DMZ PROJECT Committee encourages open
participation and collaboration throughout the planning process of the 《REAL
DMZ PROJECT 2015: Lived Time of Dongsong》. The Committee discussed
various issues surrounding the DMZ with art professionals and artists and
received recommendations for artists and organizers who would participate in
the project. Through this process, two curators (Keum Hyun Han and Nam-See Kim)
and fifty-two artists and teams joined the project, and together they visited
Dongsong, shared ideas on the exhibition format, possible venues, and potential
work proposals.
In other words, the project was realized through active
participation, invitation, and mutual agreement and respect. It is to diversify
the participating curators and artists, to look at the DMZ as an expanding and
overlapping social boundary, and to open up multiple viewpoints on the many
tangible and intangible boundaries that exist in our society with the
participating artists of past and present generations. The REAL DMZ PROJECT
aims to draw upon another meaning of the ‘time lived together’ in the ‘lived
time of Dongsong.’
The 《REAL DMZ PROJECT 2015:
Lived Time of Dongsong》 consists of works of various forms and contents,
including painting, photography, sculpture, video, installation, and text. For
instance, Choi Gene-uk aspires to capture the Old Labor Party Building in
Cheorwon through his paintings, and Yang Yeon-hwa’s prints will portray the
life of her family living in Cheorwon, while Kim Jipyeong’s research-based
Oriental paintings shed a new light into the eight landscapes of Cheorwon. In
addition, the exhibition will present video and sound installation works that
employ various subjects and approaches as well as outdoor installations.
Yumi
Park’s video work imagines a baseball player batting a baseball over the
barbed-wire fence of the DMZ, and Joon Kim’s sound installation captures the
sound signals of the DMZ border area. As an architect-artist duo, Dongsei Kim
and Soyoung Chung reflect upon the geopolitical context of the DMZ from a
perspective of personal relationships and experiences by presenting a pair of
outdoor installations, one in the Dongsong Bus Terminal and the other in
Cheorwon Catholic Church.
Through the project and even their individual works, the participants
could permeate into the everyday space of the local residents, dynamically
inviting communication and collaboration with the local community. Hyejin Jo
collaborates with a photo studio in Dongsong, and Jaehyun Shin, Yang Yoon im,
and Youngjoo Cho will each perform workshops that invite local young students
and middle-aged residents. By organizing various programs in addition to the
exhibition, such as performance, artist talks, and screenings, the project
hopes to foster more intimate and approachable relationship with the local
community of Dongsong.
