60 years has passed since South and North Korea concluded the ceasefire agreement of the Korean War. As a result, the Korean Peninsula is left as the world’s only divided nation, and regrettably, the current situation has social structures, living conditions, values, and emotions seriously heterogenized due to ideological gaps. As tension and fear for regarding resumption of war has gradually volatilized owing to the weight of 60 years, two systems and two logics have become permanent. As generations which didn’t undergo the war have gradually become larger than the generations which did, our attitudes towards the aftereffects of the war, such as unending war, the reality of division, anticommunist ideology, dispersed families, and military facilities, proceed from autobiographic memories to collective memories, and to an individual perspective, and the matter of interpretation divided in multilayers.

Highlighting the 60 years we lost in a state of cold-war confrontation, the exhibition In Search of Lost Time which co-hosted with Korean War Memorial Foundation is an opportunity to shed light on the reality of our division and examine the views of artists who explore conciliation and peace between South and North Korea through three sections: The gap of oblivion; Floating longing; and Resumed songs. The section The gap of oblivion presents sketches from diverse perspectives toward the situation of division after armistice. Jeong In Sook, JoSeub, Back Seung Woo, and Kim Taeun display multilayered interpretations of a degraded meaning of the war and the reality of division, contemplating a sense of defeat, frustration, and wounds caused by war in the oblivion and loss of time.

The section Floating Longing addresses emotions such as bitter grief caused by nostalgia and pain of separation among family members. Son Jang Seob, Kwun Sun Cheol, and Kim Hae Min display unresolved sympathy and longing between South and North Koreans who are same people. They look back on the meaning of the war through the stories of a mother and daughter, Jeong Jong Yeo and Jeong Hye Ji, brothers Kim Ki Chang and Kim Ki Man.

The section Resumed Songs reviews artistic utterances asserting the end of the war and the overcoming of the reality of division. Seo Yong Sun, Kim Heryun, Kim Tschoon Su, and Park Chan Kyong sing conciliation, peace, and hope between South and North Korea, trying to heal the wounds caused by the war and displaying the Korean people as one whether South or North. What we have lost after the ceasefire is life we have to share and burden together and humanity, rather than the physical time of 60 years. It is expected the exhibition will awaken the reality of division we are gradually forgetting and review values we have to rediscover with our wishes for unification and peace.

Choi jeong-ju, Chief Curator of the OCI Museum of Art

*image (left)
set, 2000
video, 16min
© Chan Kyong Park

Courtesy of OCI Museum of Art