[Subtitle]
This work is about enshrining the cherry
tree that used to be in the middle of Gasi three-way intersection, the busiest
part of Gasi-ri.
I remember wandering around when I first
came to Gasi-ri.
But then I saw this tree and the three-way
intersection, and thought ‘this must be the entrance to the village’.
To me, this is the first image that comes
to mind when thinking of Gasi-ri.
I had never lived in countryside before.
Gasi-ri is quite rural.
When a stranger comes to a small village,
everyone notices that person right away.
I was certain I would do well simply
working and residing in this given place- residency- for 3 months. But if I just
stayed in such bubble, I would only get to meet so many people.
No matter how much time I spend in the
village, it was likely I wouldn’t get to know the villagers and Gasi-ri as a
whole. So I wanted to go up to them and say “Hi, my name is Yoohyun. I’m living
here at the moment. It’s lovely to meet you”.
5-Day Morning Coffee
“It would be nice if you just come have
coffee every time. Thanks!”
“I live right over there. By the way, do
you know anything about this tree here?”
“Not really.”
“Not even how old it is?”
“Something like 30 years old.”
“The man who planted this tree is the
father of the old man of Gasi bistro.”
“Thornbush. They planted thornbush around
the tree because kids would pick and harm it. The old man would run swinging a
stick to shoo them away.”
“This tree is in a bad shape.”
“Was it originally planted in the middle of
the intersection?”
“Yes. It was in the center at first”.
I wanted to make a work that cherishes the
existence of that tree, or the fact that the tree was there.
But I didn’t want it to be like a monument.
Monument is too authoritative.
I have a keen interest in shadows.
Shadow is composed of light, object and
surface.
Their relationships, in what angles they
are positioned, or textures of the surfaces would engender different shadows.
Had the tree been not at the intersection
but somewhere else, a different shadow would have appeared.
And if it was at a different time, the
shadow would differ, again.
So I traced the shadow appeared around 2:30pm
with chalk,
and then made the mat of that very shape:
the shadow of the cherry tree of Gasi
three-way intersection at 2:30pm.
Pongnang a-re Pang: The Event
“You know the tree at the three-way
intersection?”
“Yeah.”
“And do you know it is a different tree
now?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s the shape of the old tree’s shadow.”
I prepared Pongnang a-re Pang postcards, which had the outline of the shadow
printed on, for the people who gathered on the mat.
Some people simply colored the shape, some
drew, some wrote poetry, some wrote stories… whatever they wanted to share.
Each and every one who participated in the
story sharing later received a postcard of someone else.
I scanned the gathered postcards and made a
book like this.
This is a piece of the cherry tree I
brought on the day it was uprooted.
The tree fell down a lot quicker than I
thought.
Ah, the book is finished.
This thought was in my head the whole time.
‘Wouldn’t have that tree seen everything
and heard everything?
Everything that happened around Gasi three-way
intersection and the stories of Gasi-ri from 1957 to 2013…
Wouldn’t have the tree known?’
