Iris Moon
/
APRIL 26, 2003 Korea Herald
/
For centuries, dealing with sanitation has posed problems for a city’s inhabitants and its rulers. Even back in the early 15th century, during the Joseon Dynasty it was a problem. While Kind Sejong was worrying about Korean grammar and wars, he also deems it necessary to use Seoul’s urban streams as a natural sewer system, for the city’s growing population. Yet this ancient mode of employment would not be the last use of Chenggyecheon. The purpose of Kim Woo-young’s multimedia documentary project, “There After” on view at the Ilmin Museum of Art, was not to condemn or laud the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s plans to restore the urban stream.
The photographs of settlements along Cheonggyecheon’s 50 km and Korean motels seemed to speak instead about the ironies of Korea’ notion of urban “culture.” Where the cycle of development, deterioration and renewal for the sake of economic prosperity happens in a flash. And nature becomes a matter of nostalgia.
“This cycle [of development and restoration] is too short. Korea is living in this ‘concrete culture,’ and we think that this culture is naturally ours. All we are known for is the World Cup, and we have a lot of athletes, and we work hard to earn money – that’s the kind of image we have projected to the world,” said Kim in an interview with The Korean Herald.
The exhibit was divided into two sections. The front of the first floor gallery contained black and white ghostly transparencies of buildings set up along Chenggyecheon. These were hung in front of color-saturated images of the city’s surviving bits of nature, like saplings and small flowers. The second section was a series of photos taken in Korean motels.
Kim’s show exposed some of the rarely seen cul-de-sac views of urban Korea. “It’s just the eeriest feeling being down there [in Chenggyecheon]. Sometimes it feels like it’s just been hit by a bomb. And yet there’s this melancholy aspect too. But when it’s gone you won’t be able to experience it anymore,” said Kim. He plans to continue shooting the area until the restoration project is finished.
Kim spoke somewhat cynically about the project to uncover the stream, and the nature of housing in Seoul. “I think apartments will be set up there eventually anyways. And there are no apartments as ugly as ours in the rest of the world; they are so ugly and built without any thought. People just pay premium prices for them and move in
without a thought,” he said.
While Kim was shooting the stream area and its deconstructions, he had trouble with the workers hired by the city government. He had to visit the police station often. “They kept thinking I’d portray them in a negative light,” Kim said. Some workers were even afraid that they would be exposed for dumping the leftover concrete, and incur huge fines.
Growing up under President Park’s development plans and the student demonstrations of the 80s, the only way Kim felt he could approach his project was with a sense of irony. “Cheonggyecheon has a lot of meanings for me. Now we just want to turn it into a kind of pretty display, but it’s really ironic. Not even 100 years have passed; it’s been a couple of years and we already want to “renew” and uncover it. And in any case, it was originally made for development.”
The exhibit’s second part were interior shots of 120 motels across Korea, the photos highlighted both Kim’s commercial photography background as well as the furtive sides of intimacy. The gallery’s far wall was showered with colorful scenes of empty motel rooms and objects. The images showed a combination of traditional fuchsias, greens, and yellows seen on tradition Korean costumes and scenes from garish music video. The colors were also reminiscent of the Araki exhibit that graced the same walls a couple of months ago.
Although devoid of people, Kim spoke of how these rooms showed a place where many, or perhaps all people had passed through. In Korea’s conservative society, the rooms were a place where young people would sleep together, or were a form of shelter from a long journey. “The cities, motels, these things are both made by people and so many people pass through them and will stay there,” he said.
Upon closer inspection, the images looked like stilled afterthoughts of quaint interiors, unknowingly assembling themselves around the transient individuals passing through an underworld of motels. Kim’s project highlights the awkward waves of a city’s development. In his imaged city, nature has become a thing of the past. Nature is only graspable in designated square plots sprinkled around the city like artifacts. In his sense, even Seoul’s restoration plans prove a bit sinister, because renewal inevitably seems to involve future re-destruction as well.
_
Charting a stream of urban culture
Iris Moon
APRIL 26, 2003 / Korea Herald