Oh
Suk
Kuhn

 Two Houses _  Extended and modified houses of Korea

Incheon, the main stage of my work is a port city opened its door with great desire for modernization in 1883. At the same time, it has a lot of historical scars from sacrifice to achieve modernization of Korea. I think that Incheon is compressed and symbolic space that reflects the history of Korea’s modern and contemporary times the most and its scars from residue of development demonstrate obsession and trauma which still linger Korean society.   

We can find all these scars in cities such as Seoul, Incheon Kunsan where embrace inheritance of modern times. Having been extended and renovated according to the needs of each times, Architectures of modern days have been supporting their crossbred and vertical life. Favoring benefits and practicalities gave birth to a monster-like outward appearance. I can say, it is the result of indiscriminate acceptance and transformation without norms and principles. Our attitude and ways for living forced to choose in this land made the monsters which are very simple to find from our modern and contemporary history.  

Transformed from its original form, unique and idiosyncratic substance made by crossbreeding and abandoned due to practical interests and desire, the figure of this monster is grotesque. Sometimes it is great and masculine but often lonely and precarious,  calling for sympathy. And it is fascinating. It is also our willingness to live, desire, what we are now and our inner selves.    

 <From the Sea to Youth>_  Continuously inherited symbol of Youth in a house(home/school )

Choi Nam Sun‘s poem, *<From the Sea to Youth>, regarded as the first modern poem in Korea shows overall consciousness toward youth at a modern times of Korea. The poem proclaims that the youth including boys and girls are nation’s pillars and they would lead us into the new world overcoming Joseon, the old system. The intellectuals of rugged and winding modern times suggested that the strength of the youth should be propelled to develop Korea and its people. To this end, their desire is only to be restrained and unified.

It is highly likely to see constrained portraits of our youth suppressed by parents’ generation or a nation even these days. We can capture the same action, impression and appearance   of our father’s times and even ours from present teenagers. That is a forlorn picture of the youth which has been inherited and unwittingly fixed in a moment and soon to be banished and forgotten.

 * The poem was published in the first issue of 『Youth』 in November 1908. It has showed the aspiration of establishing powerful and energetic new society through acceptance of then developed culture of western and Japanese world.  

<Ash and Dirt> _  Disappeared from extended and modified buildings so undocumented our personal history 

Since Korea opened its door to the world in the early 20th century, we have been running like a rocket rising vertically. As we were soaring vertically, a lot of things left down and disappeared. In the fierce history reminiscent of war and under the shadow of high-speed economic development, the nation forced individuals to sacrifice and oppressed their freedom and value in the name of ‘greater good’. Traumatized desire and obsession of modern times had become even more turbid with the mixture of denial of ‘Joseon’. 

We have lost many things. Having lost many things half willingly and half not, we are only proceeding forward. Ranging from burnt down portraits of Kings of Joseon by the gutted flame of Korean War to untraceable history of a family and a lot of individuals who disappeared in traumatized history, many thing are irreversible. A lot of things that had been faded into oblivion are becoming ash with the mixture of our lethargic memory. Our desire aspiring upwards and struggle would be accumulated but soon to be gone like dirt.              

We have been vertically running to obtain value which has been socially acknowledged and injected as a right thing. As a result, Korea has made amazingly abnormal development. But now it has only blackish legend of success putting personal history in the dark. And our constrained and fossilized adolescent periods exist lonely to cover the scars of history in the initial stage of this circulating structure.