Borders: On Various Borders and the Border Between Art and Practice

 

Choi Chang-hee (Aesthetician, Director of Emotional Policy Research Center)

 

Scene: Art Museum

In the dark gallery, a grand sound reverberates. Boom, boom~ Then, voices faintly echo here and there. Yes, voices! The stories of someone. The tale stretches from Jeju's Gangjeong Gurumbi, across the sea to Okinawa's Henoko Bay, through the wind-blown grass of Gunsan, and towards Okinawa's Futenma base, and continues on from the Jeju 4.3 Memorial Site. The story follows a long, winding narrative, carried by the harsh winds across the sea to distant foreign lands, passed on from one to another, and finally reaching this dark exhibition space in the art gallery. Here, their voices softly linger, and their appearances exist as large images on the screen. The story that connects these voices and appearances becomes a letter, crossing seas and oceans, arriving here, settling on the other side of their images. The transferred voices, stories, images, and the actual text of the narration. The reality of those who exist and the reality they face have been transformed and transfigured into immaterial images and sounds, becoming the present (another reality) that we see and hear. And yet, that which remains unchanged—no, the narration, holding within it all the changes of time and space—has ‘arrived’ before us in its material form. The immaterial and the material, images and sounds instead of tangible entities, and the written words on the blank paper of reality are all intertwined. This entanglement and Interweaving manifest not only within the space of the museum and the external reality but also across various spaces such as Jeju, Gunsan, Uijeongbu, Dongducheon, and Okinawa, and extend further to multiple bodies and their various voices.

 

What do the videos, voices, and stories we encounter truly reveal? And what is it that the artists behind this space, this stage, aim to express? In the 2024 Saeng Saeng Hwa Hwa exhibition, artists Kim Hyun-joo and Cho Kwang-hee In the 2024 Saeng Saeng Hwa Hwa, artists Kim Hyun-joo and Cho Kwang-hee unveiled their works under the theme <Land and Sea – Patterns of Entanglement and Interweaving >. The three video works, <Letter – Voices of the Land Facing Each Other: Inaba and Hye-yeong>, <Letter – Voices of the Land Facing Each Other: Tomiyama and Charles>, and <Letter – Voices of the Land Facing Each Other: Arakaki and Jung-seo>, are displayed in parallel across a large wall. In these films, the individuals featured are reading long strips of white paper in their hands—letters that have been sent between one another. These are the stories, the correspondences, shared between them, revealing the quiet power of exchange and connection through written words. The letters in the video works are installed, cascading from the ceiling to the floor, filling the wall they face. The continuous images of photographs, videos, and text intersect, illuminating the letters like stage lights on a theatrical set. It is the work <The Unending – Waiting for the End>. The three videos on one wall are intertwined with long strips of paper covered in text, installed across the entire opposite wall, onto which the videos are projected. And the sound is mixed throughout the entire space. It is not a single sound, but a combination of various sounds. The grand soundscape, mixed with multiple voices, intersects with the videos and installations, creating the ‘Patterns of Entanglement and Interweaving.’ On the stage shaped by the Patterns of Entanglement and Interweaving, real events, places, and individuals are present, yet it is the stories, images, and sounds that ultimately reach us. Through the artists, we confront these actual events transformed into fictionalized art. This is the scene—our reality—that we encounter.

 

Inside and Outside the Art Museum – Fiction and Reality

There is a place called the military base town, a term used for areas where U.S. military bases are stationed. These places, known as base towns, are names of villages that have lost their original identities. Who are the ones who have taken the stage? Inaba and Hye-yeong, Tomiyama and Charles, Arakaki and Jung-seo—these individuals stand on a stage set against the backdrop of a beautiful sea and a windswept grassland. Yet, these places are no longer pristine; they have become ruined, scarred by history, leaving behind wounds that remain to this day.

And the letters they are reading are long, winding stories. They are stories of their lives, tales of Okinawa, the story of Gangjeong Gureombi and Yeonsanho, and the stories of the dugong in the waters of Henoko. The two artists, Kim Hyun-joo and Cho Kwang-hee, listen to all of these stories. Traveling to places like Gangjeong in Jeju, Gunsan in Jeollabuk-do, Henoko in Okinawa, and Dongducheon, they represent all of us by listening to the stories of activists, villages, and the living beings of those places. They transformed these stories into letters, passing them from Okinawa to Gangjeong, from Gunsan to Okinawa. Hye-yeong from Gangjeong read the story of Inaba from Okinawa at the blasted Gureombi, while Inaba read the story of Gangjeong in front of the sea at the where the Henoko base was under construction.

 

In the Gotjawal of Jeju, where the scars of the 4.3 Incident remain, the letter of Okinawan activist Tomiyama was read, while in a place where civilians were collectively massacred during the Pacific War, the letter of Gunsan activist Charles (Cheol-su) was read, facing each other.

 

Okinawa, a land where one cannot move forward directly, is described by Arakaki, who speaks of boundaries everywhere. This narrative is performed as a reading drama by Gunsan activist Jung-seo, standing in front of a resilient ‘pang’[hackberry]tree, which serves as a guardian against the expansion of the Gunsan Air Force Base. Meanwhile, on the land returned from the Futenma base, Arakaki performs a song and dance. The artists have transformed places of wounds and conflict into stages, creating their stories as reading dramas, which are then sent to this museum as a form of art.

 

After the Pacific War, Okinawa was placed under U.S. military governance. Though it was returned to Japan in 1972, the issues surrounding U.S. military bases and various conflicts continue to persist. Furthermore, the Japanese government’s plan to relocate the Futenma base to Henoko has intensified the conflict, with strong opposition to the U.S. military presence, making the situation even more complex. Okinawa, a small island that accounts for less than 1% of Japan’s land area, hosts 70% of the U.S. military forces stationed in Japan. This has led to a situation where it is said that one cannot move forward directly in Okinawa. Visible borders are paired with invisible ones. The residents advocating against the bases are divided from those who monitor them, and as a result, no one can live their life as fishermen or lead a normal daily existence.

 

 

Okinawa, a land where one cannot move forward directly

Okinawa, a land where one cannot simply pass through

- <Letter – Voices of the Land Facing Each Other: Arakaki and Jung-seo> Excerpt from Arakaki's letter

Fishermen

They want to live as fishermen.

They want to live by catching fish.

- <Letter – Voices of the Land Facing Each Other : Inaba and Hye-yeong> Excerpt from Inaba Hiroshi's letter

 

Jeju's Gangjeong village has been devastated by the construction of a naval base, with the beautiful Gureombi being blasted and the lives and community of its residents collapsing. Despite the official designation as a ‘Jeju Civilian-Military Complex Port for Beautiful Tourism,’ it is difficult to distinguish whether it is a naval base or a U.S. military base, as the situation has become so entangled. This conclusion is inevitable, as the port's design does not even accommodate cruise ships, and reports suggest that there is almost no civilian investment budget. Furthermore, the U.S. nuclear-powered submarine tender ‘Frank Cable’ (AS-40) has docked, and joint military exercises involving the U.S., South Korea, and Japan are being conducted. This leaves us unable to determine whether it is a naval base or a U.S. military base, with many hidden truths remaining. Even 12 years after the blasting of Gureombi, the residents of Gangjeong continue their peace and life movements, dreaming of recovering their daily lives and community, while also advocating for solidarity with non-human life forms in the face of a destroyed landscape and the ongoing conflict between war and peace.

 

Gunsan Airport is jointly used by the U.S. Air Force and the Republic of Korea Air Force, but the ownership belongs to the U.S. Air Force. The U.S. military base in Gunsan houses two combat squadrons, and, except for emergencies and special situations, an average of 50 fighter jet sorties are made daily, resulting in an overwhelming amount of noise. As a result, the noise pollution is so severe that it makes daily life nearly impossible. The more significant issue is the tragic loss of residents due to an ammunition depot explosion. Even more concerning is the fact that 640 households have been displaced due to the expansion of the U.S. military base, yet we have not been fully informed of the details of this reality.

 

 

For generations, the people who made their living through fishing and farming have maintained a community on this land.

The tidal flats of everyone, the sea of everyone

…

As the tidal flats disappear, life vanishes,

and as life disappears, the fishermen vanish.

- <Letter – Voices of the Land Facing Each Other : Tomiyama and Charles> Excerpt from Charles' letter

 

Boundary: Art and Practice

The stories from Gangjeong, Gunsan, and Okinawa, and the scarred places that became stages, shake the boundaries between reality and art. The real stories transformed into poetry, and the sites of ongoing, yet enduring, events became the stage for these narratives. The video recordings of performances that unfolded like dramatic readings and the fabricated letters written like poetry, these moments were entirely transfigured into art. But can this art truly be considered fiction? It moves between reality and fiction, blending practice and art, with art and politics intersecting in this space. In this way, <Land and Sea – Patterns of Entanglement and Interweaving> becomes both art and politics. By continuously addressing issues of time, space, and occupation, and experimenting with boundaries, this art becomes, in essence, a form of politics. Furthermore, due to various aesthetic devices, it crosses the boundary between art and practice. Jacques Rancière, in explaining how aesthetics, as the distribution of time and space within the body, is inherently political, offers a description of political art—or art that bridges the gap between art and practice—that fits perfectly in this context.

 

 

“Artistic practices cross boundaries without abolishing them. They are placed in an unstable balance, losing the reference point that would identify them as art, without acquiring another defined identity. This ambiguity causes artistic practices to sometimes directly mix with the actions of activists in occupied squares or defense zones, or, at times, to echo from afar.” (Jacques Rancière, 『The Travels of Art』, translated by Yang Chang-yeol, forthcoming from Hyunsilmunhwa)

 

Artists constantly engage in research. However, it is impossible to distinguish whether their research is for artistic activities or for actual practical efforts. Just as it is meaningless to separate art from life, and as art, in this sense, is both art and politics, they embody the absence of boundaries between these distinctions through their practice. Therefore, their art exists both here and within life itself. And today, we encounter their works here. It allows us to directly confront the full scope of issues: real events and art, the relationship between art and politics, and the blurred lines between fiction and reality. The artists we meet in reality are busy offering explanations. But those are not stories of art. They are stories filled with anger about real events and realities. Yet, the work we are facing today has abstracted these entangled patterns through the aesthetic device of art, presenting them to us in a new form. The events we could not confront have been conveyed to us in this way. This transmission is both their art and their practice,

 

The histories that came together in resistance,

the things that have endured,

the things that keep the flame alive.

 

To win is to never give up,

a phrase spoken like words of love, exchanging courage and strength.

 

This is not only their story but also the song of the artists. A song that has reached us here in the museum—let us listen to their story together. It is the voice of poetry that speaks of lives lost, villages destroyed, and seas where life has disappeared. This poetry crosses oceans, transcends borders and walls,

and, beyond form, becomes the art that touches us—the very essence of life itself.