Lush, dreamlike greenery of DMZ lights up Seoul, Tokyo and London

Scenes from Jun So-jung's “Green Screen” (2021) / Courtesy of the artist and CIRCA

By Park Han-sol

Korea's Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) ― a 250-km-long and 4-km-wide strip dividing the two nations that has remained virtually untouched from human activity for nearly seven decades since the signing of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement ― is a paradoxical landscape.

While it serves as visual proof that the two Koreas are technically still at war, and that the division of the peninsula is rife with political tension, the very fact that the DMZ is off-limits to the general public is what has transformed it into a utopian wildlife sanctuary.

Artist Jun So-jung's short film “Green Screen,” a cinematic montage of the green strip of land between North and South Korea, has been occupying gigantic billboard screens daily in Seoul, Tokyo and London this month, as part of a global art project showcased by CIRCA.

Launched in London's Piccadilly Circus in October 2020, CIRCA is a digital art platform that aims to introduce works of both rising and established artists contemplating the present-day world on electronic billboards, with the featured names changing every month. The past participants include Ai Weiwei, Patti Smith and David Hockney.

Each month, the project selects a new artwork to display on the digital screens in several major cities around the world, usually at the same time every day. Jun is the first Korean artist to be invited to participate in this global project.

The still and moving images of the DMZ that appear in “Green Screen” were filmed earlier this year by the artist herself at the Civilian Control Zone in the South bordering the region. By looking at the scenery as a mixture of war-ravaged conflict and the beauty of natural life, Jun encourages viewers to transcend the geopolitical division and to consider the potential of coexistence and forms of solidarity.

Artist Jun So-jung / Courtesy of the artist

“The landscape of the border is a twilight zone full of potential that shows the overwhelming vitality and power of nature, while being a screen that overlaps and projects countless moments of hostility and hospitality attempted between the two Koreas,” Jun noted.

The score that plays throughout the duration of the video is titled “July 7th (Chilseok)” (2020), composed for gayageum (Korean zither) and harp. It is inspired by the folktale of the Cowherd (Gyeonu) and Weaver Girl (Jiknyeo), a celestial couple who remain separated all year round as a punishment for their love, except on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. The tale thus serves as a metaphor for inter-Korean relations.

The short film is played at 8:21 p.m. every day at Seoul's COEX K-Pop Square, London's Piccadilly Lights as well as on the CIRCA website, and at 9 a.m. at Tokyo's Yunika Vision, until the end of August. Visitors attending these CIRCA exhibitions are encouraged to bring their headphones.

Scenes from Jun So-jung's “Early Arrival of Future” (2015) / Courtesy of the artist and CIRCA

Whereas “Green Screen” concentrates on the DMZ's existing landscape of both conflict and natural paradise, Jun's other work, “Early Arrival of Future,” explores a time yet to come.

The 10-minute video stages a duet performance between North Korean-born pianist Kim Cheol-woong and South Korean pianist Uhm Eun-kyung. Unlike “Green Screen,” this piece will be screened in its entirety only once, at 8:15 p.m. on Aug. 16 in Seoul.

According to Jun, the collaboration between the musicians of the two Koreas “envisages a time that has not yet arrived,” representing a brief moment of reunification that seems difficult to reach in current times. “It makes this indefinite future built on conversations and mediations possible, albeit temporarily in its creative space.”

“In an era of heightened divisions, between individuals and groups within global society, we are honored to present Jun's work as a shining example of art's potential to evade and overcome boundaries of conflict and geographical separation,” Josef O'Connor, founder and artistic director of CIRCA, said in a statement.

The recipient of the 18th Hermes Foundation Missulsang prize, Jun is an artist who brings forth the intricate relationship between historical memories and present-day experiences via interviews, historical materials and narratives from classical texts, which are newly assembled as works of interdisciplinary media art.