This year marks seventy years since the armistice in the Korean War, which broke out in 1950. That conflict, which still technically has not ended, gave rise to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a stretch of land 248 km (155 miles) in length that extends for two kilometers on either side of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) between North and South.

The DMZ space belongs exclusively to soldiers and is off limits to members of the public. In 2018, North and South Korea each demolished ten guard posts (GPs) following a meeting of their leaders at the Joint Security Area (JSA). But this move toward inter-Korean peace has not progressed since then, and the North has become ever more isolated amid its continued nuclear testing.

《DMZ Exhibition: Checkpoint》 is a project that recalls the DMZ’s spatial nature and history and the significance of Korea’s division as it uses the perspectives of contemporary art to examine the phenomena created by the border and division between North and South Korea. Its exploration of the Korean War, inter-Korean division, and the DMZ starts with an understanding of history and politics.

Based on that understanding, the participating artists are not so much focusing directly on the social phenomena and trauma caused by the border as they are approaching the DMZ from a free and open perspective, roaming over the border and sometimes looking at their subject in abstract terms or distancing themselves to establish a more unfamiliar take.

Also, the exhibition attempts a new approach to the natural environment and ecosystem of the DMZ—which are the results of 70 years of political division—and an exploration of the new possibilities associated with the military spaces spawned by that division. Frozen in time as a demilitarized space, it has become a place where only plants and animals live, while human activities have disappeared.

In using the natural environment of the DMZ and the places left behind by soldiers around it as an exhibition setting, 《DMZ Exhibition: Checkpoint》 turns an artistic perspective on the DMZ today, transforming unused military spaces into spaces for art.

Between August 31 and September 23, 2023, 《DMZ Exhibition: Checkpoint》 is being staged at Dora Observatory and Camp Greaves, a former US military base within the Civilian Control Zone (CCZ) in Paju, Gyeonggi Province; and Pyeonghoa-Nuri in Imjingak, a setting that North Koreans displaced by the war would visit and yearn for their lost homeland.

After that, it will be taking place from October 6 to November 5, 2023 at Yeongang Gallery (an exhibition space located in a CCZ village in Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province); at the Imjingang Peace Wetland Park; at the railway station of Sinmang-ri, which was constructed by US troops in a refugee settlement village; and at the Daegwang-ri, and Sintan-ri stations, which were whistle stops on the journey north during the Japanese occupation.

In this way, the exhibition links together the places that have been created or connected by 70 years of Korean division, from the train stations that once carried passengers northward before North and South Korea were divided to an observatory that offers a view of the North, a camp where US soldiers were stationed after the war, and the entrance to a village in the CCZ.

Taking place in an exhibition setting that links various locations created by the seven-decade political division of Korea, 《DMZ Exhibition: Checkpoint》 is an opportunity for viewers to rediscover the historical meanings associated with those places as they visit them individually to view the artistic creations. Much like a video game where users visit different places to collect special items, this can be an invaluable experience of reflecting on 70 years of inter-Korean division as visitors stop in the places created by division to view the eclectic works of art presented there.

As 《DMZ Exhibition: Checkpoint》 looks at the historical/political space of the DMZ through the differing perspectives of artists, it calls to mind a forgotten setting that exists right in our midst—a “demilitarized” setting that is ironically one of the most militarized in existence—and the events that have taken place there. These artists’ perspectives may appear somewhat sentimental or light next to the weight of history and politics, but that lightness contains multiple layers of ideas and imagination that are like seeds waiting to be carried off somewhere to blossom with new stories.
 

Participating Artists

Che Onejoon, Soyoung Chung, Gimhongsok, HaeAhn Paul Kwon Kajander, Kyungah Ham, IkkibawiKrrr, Su-Mi Jang, Sunny Kim, Makiko Kudo, Hyeseong Kwon, Jaeseok Lee, Jung-hoon Lee, Woosung Lee, Mikael Levin, Minouk Lim, Moon Kyungwon & Jeon Joonho, Na Mira, Ok Seungcheol, Boma Pak, Hyungjin Park, Noh-wan Park, Seonglib, Suh Youngsun, Sikyung Sung, Kim Westfall, Tomoko Yoneda, Zoh Kyung Jin/Cho Hye Ryeong

References

• 《DMZ Exhibition: Checkpoint》