[INTERVIEW] Inscribed red bars of soap reflect traumas of former East Germany residents, Koryoin

Artist Kwon Eunbi poses during an interview at The Korea Times office in Seoul, Nov. 24. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Kwon Eunbi's 'Wash Project' uncovers individuals' fear of Cold War's structural violence, seeks collective healing

By Park Han-sol

Twelve curious-looking blocks of red soap are carefully aligned in a single row in one corner of Seoul's ARKO Art Center for the ongoing exhibition, "Local in the Making."

Each carries a translucent German or Russian word spelled out with glycerin ― "Separation," "Loss," "Fear," "Conflict" and "Pain," among many others ― a peculiar stylistic choice for a substance typically used for washing oneself.

That is until one becomes aware of the identity of the maker behind each object: residents of Bernau in former East Germany and "Koryoin," or ethnic Koreans from post-Soviet states.

Produced as part of artist Kwon Eunbi's participatory "Wash Project," these "glycerin canvases" reflect the personal traumas and sources of anguish of their creators that are rooted in the larger structural violence of the Cold War.

"By using these bars of soap to hand-wash their clothes, the participants play a part in the ritualistic process of washing away their own feelings of anxiety and fear, quite literally," the artist told The Korea Times in a recent interview.

The idea of running a temporary soap-making workshop as an unconventional platform of collective healing came to Kwon ― whose participatory projects have, over the years, spanned the themes of activism, political ideology and social marginalization ― in 2014 during her time in Berlin.

While studying at the Berlin University of the Arts, she turned her eyes to the quaint neighboring town of Bernau just northeast of the capital.

An interesting military camp sits abandoned on the outskirts of this town that used to be a part of communist East Germany.

First built in the early 1940s by the Nazi armed forces, Wehrmacht, the base was used to manufacture uniforms until the end of World War II. Following the fall of Nazi Germany, the site was subsequently occupied by the Soviet Red Army and became a warehouse for military supplies and a large-scale laundry for uniforms. Since German reunification in 1990, the complex has remained idle.

"Therefore, the town was one of the regions where its residents closely witnessed and felt the effects of the history of war, division, the Cold War and reunification," the artist noted.

Installation view of Kwon's video, photography and installation works at the ongoing group exhibition, "Local in the Making," at the ARKO Art Center in central Seoul / Courtesy of ARKO Art Center

With the support of Bernau's cultural affairs department, Kwon started recruiting participants for her project by knocking on the doors of local public culture centers with handmade brochures and giving a short speech to a group of regular attendees.

The first day of the official meeting for the project ended up drawing over 20 town residents with widely varying political beliefs and backgrounds.

"I think everyone there was initially intrigued to see an Asian woman like me recruiting people for a participatory art project, especially because, unlike multicultural Berlin, there aren't that many foreigners in the German town," she said.

"And their level of curiosity ― and empathy, in a way ― seemed to double after hearing that I was from another divided country, South Korea."

Before spelling out their sources of trauma and fear with glycerin letters into a block of soap, participants began to tell their personal stories to others at the table, most of whom they have never met.

One individual spoke of 1988, the painful year they had lost their child.

Another hailing from Ukraine recounted the story of losing her beloved in 2014 following Russia's invasion and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and the subsequent War in Donbas. The German word for "loss," engraved on her soap from eight years ago, which is on view at the gallery, is a chilling reminder to the present-day audience as the Russia-Ukraine war continues to escalate with no signs of letting up.

"No matter how personal these stories were, in the end, we realized they were a product of larger, complexly intertwined sociopolitical conflicts and structural violence that haunt us to this day," the artist said.

Kwon, center, and a group of Bernau residents partake in the "Wash Project" at an abandoned Soviet military base on the outskirts of the German town in the summer of 2015. Courtesy of Kwon Eunbi

On a scorching hot day in the summer of 2015, Kwon and her group headed to the long-abandoned military camp for the final wash day. It was during the first year that the base had opened its doors to the public since the Red Army's withdrawal.

"As the former warehouse and laundry for the Nazis and later the Soviet Army, the site still visibly bears the scars of the Cold War," she said, adding that it was thus a fitting stage for the "Wash Project" in laying bare and washing away the participants' personal traumas.

After fetching water from the nearby lake, the participants split into teams of two and each got in a large basin to wash their clothes, covered in soapsuds, by stomping on them together ― an unfamiliar practice in Europe that nevertheless delighted everyone.

"The size of each basin requires the two individuals to do the laundry while holding each other's hands or shoulders," the artist said. "The activity was a visceral reminder that it was important to seek collective healing instead of being burdened with addressing the trauma all by oneself."

Two of the participants of Kwon Eunbi's "Wash Project" get in a large basin to wash their clothes covered in soapsuds by stomping on them together at an abandoned Soviet military base on the outskirts of the German town in the summer of 2015. Courtesy of Kwon Eunbi

Seven years after the first edition, Kwon's "Wash Project" resumed in Korea this October, inviting seven Koryoin migrants this time.

Born and raised in post-Soviet states, mainly Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the participants in their 20s and 30s all moved to Korea with their families and are now based in Incheon. The port city is one of three regions here housing a major Koroyin community alongside Gwangju and Ansan.

Koryoin's diasporic existence has been marked by several stages of life-altering migrations over the last century, with each journey inextricably intertwined with the tumultuous modern history of the Korean Peninsula.

In the latter days of the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom, Koreans suffering from economic hardships gradually migrated to neighboring Russia's Primorsky Krai in search of better lives. Following Korea's formal annexation by the Japanese Empire in 1910, this exodus became full-fledged, with independence activists and intellectuals moving to the Russian Far East to form a base of anti-imperial Japan movements.

But the forced migration of over 170,000 Koryoin to Central Asia under the orders of Joseph Stalin followed in 1937. It was only after the Soviet leader's death in 1953 ― and eventually, the collapse of the Soviet Union ― that the community regained their right to relocate, with some of the members ultimately resettling in their ancestors' homeland, Korea.

"It's not like the young Koryoin participants in this project settled in Korea for a visibly political reason. But when we trace their community's complex stages of migration during the Cold War, their experience can also be seen as a part of this larger historical wave," the artist noted.

Many of their bars of soap, bearing a word in Cyrillic letters, reflect their state of life both in their birthplaces and in Korea as "permanent strangers" with no sense of true belonging.

One woman talks about her feeling of "despair" in her filmed interview with Kwon: "It makes me fall into despair that I cannot call my birthplace my hometown. It is also disheartening to be recognized as a foreigner in my historical hometown."

Another believes the word "unfamiliar" follows her everywhere she goes. Born and raised in Russia, she recalls how her classmates would call her names because of her "small eyes and unfamiliar looks."

Years later as an adult, she moved to Korea with her family, but even here, she's still an alien.

"My children attend Korean schools here, but their classmates call them Russian. The kids then often ask me what our nationalities are. I tell them we're Korean, but they think we're Russian," she continues.

Kwon hopes to continue to capture and uncover such stories through diverse participatory channels like the "Wash Project" in the future.

"In addition to German and Russian, I would like to make soap with individuals of different cultural backgrounds speaking other languages," she said. "And I want their stories to be able to reach the art museum and ask critical questions about true solidarity to the visitors."

A red bar of soap engraved with the German word, "Vergessen," meaning "to forget" or "to suppress" / Courtesy of Kwon Eunbi