Oh, your paradise1)!
-Utopia of Lim Seung chun-
Resistant voice and body : Lim made a watercraft.
A sculptor, Lim seung chun makes watercraft with the mind of Noah.
Noah who made the ark for salvation from the Deluge in the Old Testament era loaded up all the sources of life which would become the seeds for new world.
Believe it or not, the point of Noah story is reproduction of Eden after the downfall of the world by the Deluge. Lim's poignancy is different from Noah's but the basic premise for utopia is identical. Noah got the promise of rainbow when he arrived at Mt. Ararat but Lim's utopia is tragic because the reason for the decision to leave is so vague that actually it's hard to understand the purpose of his watercraft. We can't catch any hopeful atmosphere in his watercraft. Densely packed houses on the watercraft look perilous and gloomy reminding us of poor harlem.
Lim's "Dream of the Sea" is an immigrant project to an imaginary desert island in the South Pacific. He puts up a notice on a bulletin board about the purpose, qualification, and process just like Korean apartment model house notice. But his notice is a fake, which means this project contains despair.
Purpose: To comfort Koreans who have lost the living ground because of an apartment complex construction, urban renewal, submergence, we invite you to new living ground.
Destination: A desert island in the South Pacific with an area of 6,820 hector (about 21 million pyong) and in the length of about 8.4 Km (Coral reef excluded), ancient nature, ocean with wide coral reef, the most beautiful beach in the South Pacific.
Qualification: Those who can attend a briefing session (personally or send a proxy, one person per household)
In the late '70s The case of boat people who wandered from place to place is similar to that of this project. Destiny of the boat called Auschwitz at sea was tragic itself as it was impossible to imagine any illusion of utopia. Even now, there are much more 'Vietnamese' than we expect. Power struggles in small and poor countries far from cosmopolitan solidarity push the people out. They turn against their countries knowing that it's aimless and unacceptable. Below the headline of Hankyore Daily of April 17th, Escape at the risk of their life...exhausted 'rest' , there were photos and explanation like following:
"Somalis who narrowly reached Yemen after three-day voyage crossing Aden Bay take their last sleep on Arwar beach about 630km south from Yemen capital, Sanaa, on the 15th. Hundreds of Somalian refugees die attempting to go over to Yemen as a stowaway every year.(Arwar/leuters)"
The article proves that miserable end of hopeless voyage still continues. According to a recent exhibition, Palais de Tokyo held in Paris(Feb. 2007), 21th century boat people abandon their destination and try to make self-government on their boat.
Lim might have an interest in this. His watercraft was a world and an island itself. The houses on the boat depend on each other so perfectly that it looks like a strong fortress. The scenery of the houses holding and hugging each other contains resistant 'voice' against civilized cities. We cannot but shudder to think most voices end in death or in malformation. In 20th century when almost everything was weighed down in front of economic policy focusing on speed, resistant voices were inappropriate but it was true reality. On looking back upon the past, cities made by the principle of rapid economy are light and false. Lim's watercraft reminds us of the main stream of our lives in 20th century. His watercraft was made of styrofoam and plastic unlike the external appearance which looks solid and what's more, it's empty inside. The fact that not a soul was to be seen inside the craft symbolizes another thing. We cannot see inside, though.
A flagpole of stoppage and floating : level the ground for fantasy castle
In the speculation upon Lim's "stopped or floating", context of 'stoppage' and 'floating' defines the symbolized watercraft as a form. 'Stoppage' is a distorted portrait produced by ambition. We lost our direction when the people who lost their destination cry out 'separation'. As the meaning of the 'separation' is not to be with and to be far away, the separated people were destined to arrive at the 'island'. We need to perceive the fact that the ambition of stoppage started regardless of voluntary individuals. That is, we need to listen for the separation cryout. The cryout is made from gathered separation voices. The 'separated' person sweats ceaselessly to go somewhere. As we can infer that individuals move their bodies according to values which capitalism has set from the fact that it's always the night time when we wake up and fall asleep everyday. In the matter of well-being, the fact that 'capital' is the best virtue bears the 'ambition', which it never allows release of our body in the suppressed structure. The principle of 'development' promising sustainable future goes with the 'capital'. After the miserable war and slaughter, 'economic development plan' from the 1960s was a modern philosophy for reconstruction of ruined reality, which attracted people's mind like a strong magnet. In half a century it becomes future utopia. Utopia is an ideal place but ironically it doesn't exist anywhere. The term, utopia originated from English social fantasy novel by More and it means 'an imaginary ideal country with communist system in economy, democratic system in politics, and absolute freedom in education and religion. To realize 'Sae mah eul (New town) movement' fantasy, government changed thatched houses to slated ones and later, to strange western style ones of unknown nationality, then to apartment all over the nation. This uniform process is the substance of the fantasy. There are so called masterpiece apartments like 'Raemian', 'Happy Tree', 'Castle', 'Tower palace', 'Khan Empire Ville', etc. These names sound like dreams to make utopia come true. But it's hard to know what kind of Empire it means. The letter 'Empire' is written on the apartment building in Han Suck-bon style (Korean famous handwriting master) of handwriting. The apartments represent Korean house style conquering rural agricultural farms as well as cities. Sometimes they look like ambition of impolite erect pennis.
Lim turns back to the days we started to dream and brings thatched houses which is newly finished up in ash color. He reminds us of Seoul reporters village in Eunpyung area (in northern part of the village lots of reporters lived because of cheap rent) and Sooyooli (another poor village) which has disappeared to prove how the 'ambition' changed reality. We are all stopped or we make ourselves stop. The subjects of ambition which has become bigger and occupies the disappeared places are not the nation or power any more but 'myself' and 'yourselves'. But...but... there're people who cannot bocome 'myself' or 'yourselves', Lim says.
There were lots of people who lost their living grounds because of city development by government and enterprises. When they were forced to move to barren places with the fair-seeming compensation, they were mortified at being mistreated and a demonstration was staged by them. They worked for the daily wage of 30,000 won miserably and decided to make watercraft to new world. They designed a watercraft which had solid and perfect structure with likeminded people. It could be called modern Ark of Noah which stands any storms and troubles? But after ling-time discussion and design made people exhausted gradually. The people caused conflicts and disputes, and were divided into several group and then revised the design over again to realize their ideal. In the end, they completed the most ideal watercraft everybody was satisfied. That had three heads. They recognized the fact that they couldn't go anywhere.
They completed their dream watercraft, though.
He explains why we should have to stop. Similar or different 'myself' and 'yourselves' are the inevitable existence that cannot escape from the 'ambition'. As long as we have an ideal to overcome the reality, we cannot help making the three-head watercraft. He jots down like this:
The name of the watercraft is 3. 3 is made by number 1 plus 2. Here 1 means Yang(陽, the word for one half of the two opposing forces in Korean philosophy, described as "bright positive masculine principle" in Korean dualistic cosmology) and 2 means Yin(陰, the word for one half of the two opposing forces in Korean philosophy, described as "dark negative masculine principle" in Korean dualistic cosmology ☯). So number 3 is combination of Yin and Yang and that means it's unified Yin Yang. Number 3 has had an important meaning in native customs. In Southern sea fishing boats are made in March, 3rd month. Owners sleep on the new ship for 3 days after a launching ceremony. This is for praying for a good haul and no accident. Number 3 means sky(天), earth(地), and human(人). That is, 3 components(三才). According to the Tao Te Ching "One made two, two made three, and three made all things in the universe." That is, 3 could creates everything under the sun, not number 1 or 2.
We can know his formative metaphor is rooted in 'the fantastic'. The research on 'the fantastiv' had been made in Literature but we can find the similar cases in Arts easily. In arts "Fantasy is the primitive forms of human being, oppressed thoughts of individuals and collective memry, forbidden free images, and also connects dreams with realities as well as the deepest unconsciousness with the highest products". Here fantasy literature is an expression of ambition excluded from literary order. Fantasy literature world is a crack of or hidden side of real world. Katheryn Hume said that literature is a product of two impulses; Mimesis which imitates and describes people, situations, scenes, and objects, fantasy which changes and transforms the reality.
Lim's works has similar fantasy with 『A small ball a dwarf shot』, Joe Se-hee's novel. It seems to have unrealistic and transcendental structure but it's definitely based on the actual reality, ambition.
Utopia of watercraft : withhold of tragedy
Fairy tales end up in happiness but life is not like that. A common thing in fairy tales and life is people's imagination about the stories after the end. The stories after 'lived happily ever after', real stories the characters as real human beings would make are more realistic and specific to us. After the rainbow, God's promise human beings corrupted and are still corrupting. The spread of civilization occurred across all over the world makes us have no dream. Helena Norberg Hodge found the future of human being in old natural community not in up-to-date civilized city.
Lim's watercraft constructs formative reality not just as a symbol but also as specific reality. As mentioned before, the reality of this exhibition is the reporters village and Sooyooli changed into apartment complex construction. In that he has sooyooli in his memory, Sooyooli is rumination over things disappeared. These realities of memory which is reconstructed appears in the show. The design and the logbook for watercraft are in the context of fiction but they show his will not to abandon 'hope'. The appearance of watercraft surrounded by broken houses shows his will to accuse desperate reality at the opposite point of consciousness. His watercraft is nevertheless closed. Turning around we try to enter but we can't. The watercraft of tragic utopia seems to go somewhere. The destination they want to go is the hopeful self-governing whether it has three or four heads. So I withhold the 'tragic' conclusion as perhaps utopia is in there.
By Kim Jong gil / art critic
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1) Same name as 『Your paradise』, Yi chung choon's novel. Lim uses the name as content of the novel has similar message to his sculpture.
