Exhibition depicts transition on Korean Peninsula
SEOUL - Kim Dong-yeon, a graduate student from the Republic of Korea, was waiting at Seoul Station for a train to the southern port city of Busan when she was suddenly captivated by the acronym "DMZ" on a street poster.
The DMZ is the Demilitarized Zone which has divided the Korean Peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, but no peace treaty.
Unwittingly led by the poster, the 27-year-old entered an exhibition hall adjacent to Seoul Station. The former Seoul Station building is currently called Culture Station Seoul 284, where artworks by more than 50 artists, designers and architects are on display at the DMZ exhibition which runs from March 21 to May 6.
Even though she had not visited the DMZ, she was very interested in the place, which she called a "mysterious world that cannot be accessed easily" by ordinary people.
The DMZ had long been shrouded in mystery, and is known vaguely among ordinary people as a symbol of the division of the peninsula.
Since the Korean War ended, both the ROK and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea moved their troops back an equal distance of 2 kilometers from the military demarcation line.
By definition, the DMZ should have been demilitarized, but it turned into one of the world's most heavily armed zones as the Korean War ended. The zone got increasingly fortified, with mines laid and barbed wire fences erected along the 4-km-wide buffer.
The ongoing DMZ exhibition in Seoul was designed to draw people's attention to the forbidden zone, to which the world was paying increased attention amid the ongoing diplomatic efforts to denuclearize the peninsula and build a lasting peace.
"This exhibition is being held to wish for peace on the Korean Peninsula and enhance the understanding of the DMZ among ordinary people who have little knowledge of it," said Kim Haeju, co-curator of the exhibition and deputy director of Art Sonje Center in Seoul.
The symbol of division took an opportunity to transform itself into a symbolic space of reconciliation when DPRK top leader Kim Jong-un and ROK President Moon Jae-in held their first summit talks at the border village of Panmunjom inside the DMZ last April.
It was the first DPRK-ROK summit to be held in the DMZ. It was a historic moment when Kim and Moon met face-to-face and shook hands on the opposite sides of the MDL, taking a first step toward the transition of the DMZ from the symbol of division to the symbol of peace.
The transition was materialized in December, three months after the comprehensive military agreement was signed by defense chiefs of the two neighbors during the third Kim-Moon summit in Pyongyang. The agreement aimed to alleviate military tensions in border areas by setting up buffer zones on the ground, in the air and the waters.
Guard posts
Under the military agreement, the two neighbors demolished 11 of their guard posts inside the DMZ each, one of which the two sides decided later to preserve for their historical value. There remain about 50 ROK guard posts and nearly 150 DPRK posts each inside the DMZ.
The remnants of barbed-wire fences, iron stairs and fuel oil tanks, used for the DMZ guard posts that were destroyed, can now be seen in the DMZ exhibition hall.
Right behind it stands a wooden tower with a metal bell hung on the top, called the "DMZ Peace Bell". It is an installation work made of the remains of DMZ barbed wire that was melted to form the bell.
"Barbed wire that was once a symbol of division is now transformed into a bell that brings people together," said Ahn Kyuchul, a professor at the Korea National University of Arts who made the artwork.
The DMZ exhibition was designed to provide an opportunity for visitors to imagine a future DMZ in a new peace era. On the right of the central hall is a room housing works by artists, designers and architects imagining the future.
Among them is Embrace. It is an oil on canvas painted in 1981 to depict a scene where a man and a woman passionately embrace after crossing a barbed-wire fence.
Seoul is also reportedly planning to build several walking trails connected to the DMZ, which will soon be open to the general public, as part of the efforts to turn the area into a "peace zone".
Kim Dong-yeon, the graduate student from Busan, said she imagined her future trip to somewhere beyond the Korean Peninsula by a connected train across the inter-Korean border.
Xinhua
(China Daily 04/20/2019 page7)
