Eulji Theater

The artist visited the DMZ over fifty times and took a series of photographs there for one year from December 2017, when tensions were at their peak, to December 2018, when a pacific mood began to prevail. He selected 13 observatories among those in the DMZ’s eastern front to the western front, and visited them each season to take photos. The observatories, having become popular sites of “security tourism,” are regarded as discrete “theaters” in the artist’s conception. They include Peace Theater at Ganghwa Island, Communist Extinction Theater and Victory Theater at Cheorwon, Seventh Star Theater at Hwacheon, Eulji Theater at Yanggu, and Unification Theater at Goseong. One of these, the Eulji Theater, is presented in this exhibition. These photographs include a dual component of fictional mise-en-scène and documentation, as they include actors nonchalantly posing among the tourists. The 13 single-act plays tell stories about the DMZ as seen from the observatories.