A Radical Place

2012 Borderline Figures

Berlin. A city where the hypothesis that we can all be borderline figures stands feasible.
In 2011, Berlin Explore worked on orally documenting East-West Berlin¡¯s division history and German people¡¯s experience involving North Korea, under the overarching topic of Donghwan Jo, Haejun Jo and Korea¡¯s North-South division. On a continued note, we wish to raise the following concrete questions on Why the locality of Berlin is a Radical Place in relation to Korea¡¯s political, historical and social context, through Jaewoo Oh¡¯s new works.
The Korean artist invited to 2012¡¯s A Radical Place is Jaewoo Oh. In Berlin, Jaewoo Oh illuminates how national ideology and law influences individual lives by collaborating with a literary author, focusing on Du-Yul Song¡¯s book ¡°Borderline figure¡±. Professor Du-Yul Song, a Germanist, has attracted the German media¡¯s attention by being deported from Korea due to ideological issues.
Jaewoo Oh reinterprets how individual sovereignty is sacrificed within the contemporary state¡¯s power structure not from a nation-central but individual-focused perspective, through Du-Yul Song¡¯s personal history as described in ¡°Borderline Figure.¡±
The democratic state, born from the modern society, guarantees individual sovereignty by law- however, with the advent of an exceptional circumstance called ¡°security law¡± amidst the ideological conflict between South and North Korea, Du-Yul Song¡¯s personal history was victimized by the two incompatible national structures. Berlin, the center of Germany¡¯s history of division, is still a ¡°radical¡± place for Koreans (us) to whom territorial and ideological division is still in a present-progressive mode. In this regard, despite the fact that we are all guaranteed our sovereignty under Korea¡¯s democratic administration, we are all in a state where we may become ¡°borderline figures¡± - people whose right cannot be upheld - under the special condition we find in Berlin.

2012 Borderline Figures

Berlin. A city where the hypothesis that we can all be borderline figures stands feasible.
In 2011, Berlin Explore worked on orally documenting East-West Berlin¡¯s division history and German people¡¯s experience involving North Korea, under the overarching topic of Donghwan Jo, Haejun Jo and Korea¡¯s North-South division. On a continued note, we wish to raise the following concrete questions on Why the locality of Berlin is a Radical Place in relation to Korea¡¯s political, historical and social context, through Jaewoo Oh¡¯s new works.
The Korean artist invited to 2012¡¯s A Radical Place is Jaewoo Oh. In Berlin, Jaewoo Oh illuminates how national ideology and law influences individual lives by collaborating with a literary author, focusing on Du-Yul Song¡¯s book ¡°Borderline figure¡±. Professor Du-Yul Song, a Germanist, has attracted the German media¡¯s attention by being deported from Korea due to ideological issues.
Jaewoo Oh reinterprets how individual sovereignty is sacrificed within the contemporary state¡¯s power structure not from a nation-central but individual-focused perspective, through Du-Yul Song¡¯s personal history as described in ¡°Borderline Figure.¡±
The democratic state, born from the modern society, guarantees individual sovereignty by law- however, with the advent of an exceptional circumstance called ¡°security law¡± amidst the ideological conflict between South and North Korea, Du-Yul Song¡¯s personal history was victimized by the two incompatible national structures. Berlin, the center of Germany¡¯s history of division, is still a ¡°radical¡± place for Koreans (us) to whom territorial and ideological division is still in a present-progressive mode. In this regard, despite the fact that we are all guaranteed our sovereignty under Korea¡¯s democratic administration, we are all in a state where we may become ¡°borderline figures¡± - people whose right cannot be upheld - under the special condition we find in Berlin.