SPACE September 2025 (No. 694)
Installation view of Nutured Childhood (2021 / 2025, left) and Tree with Powerful Will (2022/2025, right) by Won Seoung Won. ©Kim Hyerin
Installation view of SOIL TO SOUL (2024) by Sangmin Oh. Image courtesy of Space for Contemporary Art / ©Lee Euirock
On Aug. 11, the ‘DMZ OPEN EXHIBITION: UNDO DMZ’ officially opened. Taking place at Imjingak Pyeoghwa Nuri, Tongilchon Village’s grain storage facility within the Civilian Control Line, Gallery Greaves, and DMZ Artspace Tong, the exhibition brings together ten artists – Haegue Yang, Won Seoung Won, Young In Hong, Sangmin Oh, Kim Taedong, Joon Kim, Junsik Park, RE;CODE, Silas Inoue, and Adrian Göllner – to present 23 works that record aspects of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in their own ways.
Located within the green area of Imjingak Pyeoghwa Nuri are two parallel landscapes by Won Seoung Won, Tree with Powerful Will (2022/2025) and Nurtured Childhood (2021/2025). Collaging photographic images to construct new worlds, the two works express a tenacious approach to life through the emergence of greenery in barren surroundings. On the reverse side, A Wild Boar with Golden Hair (2010/2025) by Won Seoung Won has been placed. Layering Korean folktales with the present reality of physical division into a fantastical, collaged landscape, the artist imagines a future moment when long-standing wounds and patterns will finally fade.
The exhibition also extends to Gallery Greaves, located within Camp Greaves, one of the oldest U.S. military bases in Korea. Once a bowling alley, the space now features SOIL TO SOUL (2024) by Sangmin Oh, created by using 3D knitting techniques to transform a discarded aramid yarn. This material, once intended for bulletproof vests, is reimagined as forms resembling mushroom mycelia. By highlighting the microorganisms that protect the earth and drive cycles of regeneration, the work symbolically reconfigures military supplies into natural forms, suggesting the possibility of coexistence between humans and nature. Young In Hong presents White Cranes and Snowfall (2023), eight pairs of shoes shaped as crane-foot on white sand, created from close observation of cranes flying into the DMZ. Through anthropomorphism, the cranes are seen not as part of an anonymous flock but as individual beings. The sound work installed next to it, Accidental Paradise (2025), converts human sounds into crane calls, marking a boundary where the human and the nonhuman, the past and the present, and fact and imagination overlap.
At DMZ Artspace Tong, Junsik Park presents works that study and collect the ecology of native plants in the DMZ, while Joon Kim constructs soundscapes using recordings made in the border region, charting landscapes of surveillance and ecological development. For this exhibition, Tongilchon Village’s grain storage facility – where rice harvested by local residents is stored – has been spruced up and organised into an exhibition space. Haegue Yang’s work, which is also the title of the exhibition, DMZ Un-Do (2020)▼1 is also exhibited in the same space. ‘Un-do’ means ‘to revert’ or ‘to restore’, but also carries the meanings of ‘to open’ and ‘to unravel’. The exhibition also seeks to restore the DMZ and unravel the knots of modern Korean history entangled within it. Among the works on view are Adrian Göllner’s bird drawings, created from his observations while traversing the DMZ. Silas Inoue presents urban ecological structures composed of microorganisms, made from objects and soil collected in the Civilian Control Line. Kim Taedong juxtaposes ware relics with starlight, layering temporal strata with traces of human civilization. RE;CODE, meanwhile, transforms discarded tents, military uniforms, and parachutes into new fashion pieces. The exhibition runs until Nov. 5. While the Imjingak Pyeoghwa Nuri can be accessed whenever during the exhibition period, Gallery Greaves can be reached via the Peace Gondola. Tongilchon Village’s grain storage facility and DMZ Artspace Tong are open to those participating in the DMZ Peace Tour Programme.
1 Korean title DMZ Bihaeng, ‘bihaeng’ carries dual meaning: ‘flight’ and ‘misconduct’.
