Korean environmental artist Hwang to reproduce wildlife of DMZ in Britain


The Demilitarized Zone separating the South and North Korea may be the most scarred, but at the same time, the one of the most untouched places in the world.

Hwang Ji-hae, the winner of the Artisan Garden section at the 2011 Chelsea Flower Show, this time wanted to show the place and tell “our story” badly because she knew the stage will be spotlighted by the media from all over the world and be visited by VIPs like the Queen of England.

Luckily her work “Quiet Time: DMZ Forbidden Garden” was selected along with 17 other contestants to be showcased at the Show Garden section of the Chelsea Flower Show which will be held from May 22-26. Hwang is the first Korean to enter the competition in that section. 

Established in 1827, Chelsea Flower Show is one of the world’s most prestigious horticultural events, hosted by Britain’s Royal Horticultural Society which has over 400,000 members. Hwang won both the Best Artisan Garden Award and the Gold Medal at the show’s Artisan Garden section this year with the work “Hae-woo-so (Emptying One’s Mind).”

The artist who currently lives and works in both London and Gwangju, North Jeolla Province, however, had the idea for the DMZ work long before that.

“A usual comment I heard from Londoners was that ‘your country is in war.’ I felt that that very image was the cause for the ‘Korea discount’ which is serving as a minus factor for investment and tourism in Korea. DMZ was created by war but ironically, it is the very thing that is preventing further war. I cannot think of a more peaceful garden. It is the face of world peace,” Hwang told The Korea Herald. 

The DMZ work required a bigger space than the 20 square meters allotted to her in the Artisan Garden section last year, so she waited. In June, however, when she met members of the British Korean Veterans Association in London, she knew the project could wait no longer.

“They were more than 80 years old. I thought we should console them for their sufferings that they could not share with others for a long time before they pass away. That is the least we could do,” said the artist.

She will fill the 200-220-square-meter triangular site assigned to her with wild plants that actually live in the DMZ. She visited the Yanggu region in Gwangwon Province in July, as entering the actual DMZ was forbidden, and discovered many plants indigenous to Korea such as mugwort, a type of thistle which was used on wounded soldiers to stop bleeding and acorns which served as food during the war.

The plants will be sent to a plant nursery in London in January to grow and blossom until they are ready to be moved to the exhibition site. Various military equipments like a control tower, steel helmets and barbed-wire fences will be recreated by the artist and scattered around the plants.

“Mines are not pretty, but they will look pretty when the plants cover them. The deadliest weapons are of no power in front of nature. Plants and flowers naturally grew over them during the past 60 years they have been kept away from humans. Their life force covered everything, even our most painful scars and fear,” said Hwang.

British Korean War veterans, including four who received the Victoria Cross Medals, will play an important part in the work ― Hwang will install memorial chairs made of chains containing their military serial numbers and names, and also place their belongings they used at the time of the war. On the memorial chairs and the barbed wires, she will tie letters from South Koreans whose families were separated during the Korean War.

The only thing lacking in her project is a sponsor.

“That the juries chose DMZ to be shown in the only triangular site at the show, which can be accessed from all directions, means that they recognized the importance of the project. It will be at least 10 times bigger than ‘Hae-woo-so’ so it will be difficult without a title sponsor. London will host many big events next year including the Olympics and the Queen’s diamond jubilee celebration, so I think it will be a good opportunity for PR for local companies,” said Hwang. 

By Park Min-young (claire@heraldcorp.com)