Three Views of a Mountain
4th Anyang Public Art Project, Anyang Korea (2014)
Collaboration with Dawn Weleski
Three Views of a Mountain starts and ends at Coo Coffee and takes a total of 2 hours
Time slots are available each weekend day from March 24th-April 31st
Only one person may take the journey at a time
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A participant is met at an appointed time by a guide in a cafe. The guide leads walks them out of the cafe, off of the main street, and onto a trail that heads to a journey up the Gwanak Mountain. Throughout the hike the guide narrates the journey pointing out plants, animals, topography and mountain myths that exist in North Korea. The guide could perhaps seem confused, or misplaced, or slipping between two realities. After an hour the participant arrives at a large and imposing structure, the Elements House. The participant is left to enter the structure alone. Within the structure on three floors are three rooms. Comprised only of walls and flooring, the rooms are exact replicas constructed from the memories of three North Korean defectors. On the first floor the participant is met by a defector who invites them into an open air room built as a replica of the yard behind the house they once lived in in North Korea. They proceed to give a stream of conscious tour of the space and the invisible contents and histories within. After 20 minutes the participant is directed to the second and third floors where a similar experience is led by a different defector on each floor. When this is finished the participant is taken outside the structure and pointed to a path that takes them eventually to the nearest road.
Mountains cover over 70% of the entire Korean peninsula. There are over 20,000 former North Korean citizens who have escaped and are now living in South Korea.
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Guide: Jang Yong-jin
Artistic Director: Beck Jee-sook
Curatorial Director: Jin Kwon
Production Manager: Hanbyeol Rhee
Space Design of *Elements House*: Soosung Lee