Gwangju & Bust!

Another four day weekend; what to do? I've been wanting to check out Gwangju for a while, so I talked Matt into driving us out there. He may never talk to me again!

Cheesin' with the classic kimchi pots! I had to do the "peace" thing;

all the Koreans do it when they pose with us!

My Lonely Planet guide says that Gwangju has "the heart of an artist and the soul of a revolutionary." If that's true, we saw the heart and soul of Gwangju in our fleeting visit. Our first stop was Biennale Exhibition Hall, and they had just opened a show entitled 10000 Lives. It was, as they say, avant garde. The overarching meaning of it all is "a sprawling investigation of the relationships that bind people to images and images to people." Keeping that in mind made most of the exhibits understandable. Some of it was very beautiful, some of it was interesting, much of it remained head-scratching. No photography was allowed, so I'll just highlight an example or two of each of the above that impressed on my mind. (I think Matt's only impression was "Ug."!) We'll start with what I saw as beautiful.

There was a living work of art on display. They had a room with a platform in the center where about a dozen women were dressed in black, all humming a tune sung by revolutionaries killed in a protest in Gwangju in 1980. Along one wall were ten 8x10 screens displaying at random faces of people killed in the protest. (More on that story below.) The artist had collected these pictures from families of the deceased, and the edited them to all have closed eyes symbolizing their peace in death. I liked it. My oldest was riveted by the humming ladies. Another exhibit I enjoyed was a series of 103 life size bronze sculptures, with very life like faces, depicting the suffering of Chinese peasants. They were arranged in groups, each showing a different scene. In one a woman was being dragged away, arms outstretched for her baby; in another a man was sitting on a chair while another was cowering before him. The last showed a group of strong people, their heads held high, I assume symbolizing their overcoming the past.

An example of the interesting was a large, dark room with back-lit tables displaying hundreds of photographs taken over the past 30 years or so from around the world. The pictures were nice, but I'm not sure what the 'art' part of it was. I mean, they weren't any better than your average vacation photo. In the next room you could have your picture taken in a photo booth, and then pin it up on the wall so you could be part of the exhibit. (We didn't do it.) There were many displays that were visually and aesthetically unappealing, but the explanation of the meaning made it at least mean something.

Finally, the head-scratching. There were many of these. A room full of plastic heads that had all been hammered full of nails mixed with pictures of cadavers. It was supposed to represent the suffering witnessed by the artist during World War II, which I get, but it was still bizarre. Another living work of art was a woman writhing on the floor. Totally inexplicable. A Buddha statue with a cord coming out his stomach being pulled and eaten by mangy looking birds. No explanation for its meaning. There was a whole series of old 1930/40s photographs, but what does it mean? I don't know.

So that was our view of the heart of Gwangju. We saw a glimpse of it's soul (after lunch at McD's!) in the May 18 Memorial Park, which is also a cemetery for those killed during a protest against the authoritarian government in 1980. It's been called the Tiananmen Square of Korea. You can view this website for more detailed information:

http://eng.518.org/eng/html/main.html?TM18MF=02010000

We were only able to see half of it, as one of the buildings was closed and it was starting to rain, so we couldn't cover all the grounds. But here is what we did see.

initial view upon entrance

Another view of monument with one of the sculptures. If you zoom in you can see grave markers on the bottom of the hillside, behind the monument.

Inside the memorial building; photographs of the slain.

One of the wall murals. Beyond this is the first cemetery where they originally and unceremoniously dumped and buried the bodies.

The drive there was scenic, but long and steep! We took an alternate route back, and the weather coupled with road construction was miserable. Even Matt agreed, next time we take the train!