Bridge Invasion I – Design for P-16 & P-17

For her drawing series, Hwayeon Nam was inspired by destroyed bunkers and secret military facilities in the city for the particular designs of disappearing installations. She began working on the drawings in 2005 after hearing a news item about the discovery of an underground bunker in Yeouido. This gives us an artist’s personal perspective on facilities that once existed in our collective memory. The artist suspects the possibility of military facilities hidden in ordinary-looking buildings, a plausible enough scenario in a country like Korea which remains divided as a continuing consequence of the Korean War. A tunnel that can be used as a landing strip in an emergency, a control tower disguised as a religious center, an ad-balloon concealing surveillance cameras: these are elements that constitute a network for secret military operations. The drawings are not quite detailed enough to be employed in genuine top-secret military operations. Rather, this is the point where the artist’s imagination meets that of the viewer and engages it in playful dialogue.