In return, the villagers are exempt from South Korea's compulsory military service and the national income tax. Their choice of jobs is limited ― mostly farming or livestock rearing ― as no commercial facilities exist within the settlement. Every trip residents make outside of their homes, even en route to their rice fields, must be accompanied by a military escort. Midnight curfews and roll calls are in place. This month, another project continuing this spirit of reexamining the DMZ beyond its geopolitical implications has opened at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul: 'News from Nowhere, Freedom Village' by Moon Kyung-won and Jeon Joon-ho, which peers into the only civilian settlement tucked in the middle of the southern part of the DMZ.ĭaesung-dong, also referred to in Korean as 'Freedom Village,' has remained the most secluded community across the entire peninsula for nearly seven decades since the armistice agreement, fortified with heavily-armed soldiers and barbed-wire fences, due to its proximity to its northern neighbors.ĭespite the name of the village, the lives of some 200 people near the borderline are far from being free.

The artist duo, Jung Yeon-doo and Surya, turned their eyes to relatively unknown micro-narratives ― either inspired by modern folktales, myths or historical events ― associated with the border region, and reimagined them through staged photography and a live performance called 'DMZ Theater.'Īrtists Jeon Joon-ho, front, and Moon Kyung-won / Courtesy of the MMCA Jun So-jung's short film, 'Green Screen,' which showed how the war-ravaged strip of land ironically became a utopian wildlife sanctuary, was screened daily on gigantic digital billboards in central Seoul, Tokyo and London throughout August, as part of a global art project called CIRCA. In 2021 alone, a series of art projects were made rediscovering the DMZ. The 250-km-long and 4-km-wide strip that has divided the two warring Koreas since the signing of the 1953 Armistice Agreement ― better known as the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) ― is material and visual proof of the seemingly unending political tensions on the Korean Peninsula.īut in recent years, contemporary Korean artists have begun to look at this landscape beyond the ideological conflict that it represents, creatively reinterpreting it as a new stage for ecological and cultural dialogue.

An installation view of the exhibition 'MMCA Hyundai Motor Series 2021: Moon Kyungwon & Jeon Joonho ― News from Nowhere, Freedom Village' at the MMCA Seoul / Courtesy of the MMCA

News from Nowhere by William Morris