파주

The incidents and happenings that were announced by news or rumors were superficial and had no special meaning in my life. But these things began to influence my life because I've got to live in Paju. Paju, as the Northern province of South Korea, shares the border with North Korea. I hear the North's broadcasting toward the South day and night, and I find the leaflets blown from the North which were full of political propagandas and threat of war. I realize that Ideology and division issues have keen relation with my life. And it gave me the chance to look into the reality of division. And I realize that my thoughts and beliefs were controlled by these political situations and ideological education. Now my artistic aim is to investigate that 'something' which was implanted in me by Korean society.

Paju is a military area left with the DMZ fences, G.I camps, bunkers, anti-tank bulwarks, barbed wires, watch towers, guard posts, unidentified mine fields... But Ironically Paju is crowded with economic facilities, farms, pleasure grounds, historic sites, and tourists. People on the boarder don't realize the danger and they feel nothing to do with the war. 70 year of cease fire and temporary peace made them insensitive to warfare.

So I want to contemplate and express the meeting point of historical and socio-political grand narrative and personal micro narrative by depicting the weird landscapes of Paju.

Kim Sung Rea