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언젠간 행복해지겠죠 - Glendale Central Park, 201 E Colorado St, Glendale, CA 91205, USA

소금, 가변크기, 2014

언젠간 행복해지겠죠 - Glendale Central Park, 201 E Colorado St, Glendale, CA 91205, USA

소금, 가변크기, 단채널 4분 6초, 2014

might be happy someday - Glendale Central Park, 201 E Colorado St, Glendale, CA 91205, USA

salt, variable size, 2014

might be happy someday - Glendale Central Park, 201 E Colorado St, Glendale, CA 91205, USA

salt, variable size, single channel video 4 min 6 sec, 2014

언젠간 행복해지겠죠 - Glendale Central Park, 201 E Colorado St, Glendale, CA 91205, USA

소금, 가변크기, 2014

분명 그 곳으로 가면 행복할 것이라는 말에 그 길을 잘 따라왔다.

행복하게 살고 있어야 할 청춘이지만 왜 여전히 난 행복하지 않는가?

어디로 가야 하는지 어떻게 해야 하는지 그 누구에게 물어야 할지 알 수 없었다.

- 작업노트 중 (2008)

 

어느 날, 시사지에서 동시대를 살아가는 ‘14살’들에 대한 기획 기사를 읽게 되었다.

그 중, 나와 비슷한 처지에 놓여 있던 대치동 ‘14살’을 취재한 기사.

인터뷰 말미에 기자가 행복하냐고 물었다. ‘14살’이 대답했다.

“나중엔 행복해지겠죠.”

 

순간 많은 생각이 들었다.

한창 행복을 누려야 할 시기에 행복을 유보하는 한마디에.

- 작업노트 중 (2008)

 

* 임지선 기자, <창간 14주년 기획 14살의 도전 II> 중「저 때문에 대치동 산다는 게 싫어요」,

 『한겨레21』, 제 703호, 2008.4.1., p 68.

 

16살. 지우고 싶은 1년. 사고 전반과 성격, 가치관을 바꿔 놓았고, 자연스러웠던 일상과 관계들을 마치 한 번도 해 본 적 없던 것처럼 낯설게 만들어 버렸던 시간들.

갑작스레 강남으로 전학 온 나는 그 곳과 섞일 수 없어 마치 죽어있던 것과 다름없었는데 어른들은 나에게 행복하겠다고 성공했다고 그들의 잣대대로 해석하고는 했다.

- 작업노트 중 (2008)

생의 궁극적인 목적, 그 끝엔 행복이 있다. <언젠간 행복해지겠죠>는 트라우마로 남은 성장 과정, 일상에서 겪은 부조리, 불안, 불편함을 모티브 삼아 행복에 대해 역설하는 작업이다. 공공 혹은 개인이 공유하는 동시대의 시간성과 공간성의 맥락에 따라 혹은 축적된 경험과 기억에 따라 다르게 스칠 수 있도록 ‘언젠간 행복해지겠죠’라고 텍스트를 변형, 행복과 성공에 대해 생각해 볼만한 다양한 장소들에 게릴라 방식으로 설치하여 심리적인 풍경을 조성하고자 했다. <언젠간 행복해지겠죠>는 부조리한 일상과 사회가 맞닿는 경계를, 그리고 ‘지금 여기’ 재생되고 있는 삶들의 여러 층위들을 탐색하고 응시하여 의식적으로 고찰하려는 시도이자, 작은 건드림의 기록이다.

LA 글렌데일은 오스만 제국의 압제 하에 발생한 인종 대학살의 비극적 역사를 품고 있는 아르메니안이 인구의 50% 이상을 이루고 있는 지역이다. 글렌데일 지역 사회는 대한민국의 ‘일본군 위안부’ 문제에 깊은 공감을 표하며 각별한 관심과 노력을 기울여 왔다. 그 결과, 2013년 7월 30일 국외 최초로 미국 LA 글렌데일 시 정부 공공부지인 글렌데일 시립중앙도서관 앞 글렌데일 중앙공원에 ‘평화의 소녀상’이 세워지게 되었다.

2014년 7월 글렌데일에서 진행된 <언젠간 행복해지겠죠> 연작은 글렌데일이 제정한 위안부의 날 3주년 기념행사가 개최된 알렉스 극장의 입구 바닥과 글렌데일 중앙공원의 바닥, 벤치 위에 소금으로 텍스트를 설치하여 그 위를 사람들이 지나 다니거나 만짐으로써 그 형체가 서서히 사라지는 작업이다. 장소가 지닌 고유한 역사성과 한국의 위안부 역사가 공존하는 가운데 서로 다른 문화권의 현재를 살고 있는 사람들의 시간이 중첩되어 개별적 서사가 공공의 기억으로 확장됨에 주목한다. 발걸음에 의해 바람에 의해 흩어지고, 비에 녹아 눈물처럼 스며 소멸하는 풍경은, 사라지는 듯하지만 사라지지 않고 이내 생성되 어 영속적으로 순환하는 소금과 같이, 부재로써 존재 가치를 확증한다. 또한 부정한 것들을 정결하게 정화시키는 하얀 소금은 존엄한 인간이 내뱉는 신음소리에 귀 기울이도록 환기하는 매개가 된다.

might be happy someday - Glendale Central Park, 201 E Colorado St, Glendale, CA 91205, USA

salt, variable size, 2014

“If you go there, you can reach the happiness.”

  I’ve lived following these guidelines.

  But why am I still unhappy?

  I don’t know where to go, what to do, who to ask how to live now.

  - from work note (2008)

I have a trauma in the harsh education environment. When I was fourteen, I suddenly transferred to another middle school in Daechi-dong, Gangnam in Seoul. Daechi-dong is one of a region known as a symbol of wealth and high educational fever in Korea. When I first moved there I felt like a complete outsider, and I was treated as a stranger in class. I couldn’t adjust because of the peculiar atmosphere of Daechi-dong. For example, most students there acted as if their parent’s wealth, glory, and power are all theirs. Also, many student's dreams were decided passively according to parents’ wishes. School life was full of excessive competition. That one year changed my own values and character and made my daily life and relationship with people unfamiliar.

After that, when I was 20, One day, I saw an interview in a magazine that a 14-year-old student living in Daechi-dong. Same as me. The article’s title was 「I don’t want to live in Daechi-dong 」. At the end of the interview, the reporter asked her. “Are you happy now?” She said. “Later, I’ll be happy.”

The answer made me think deeply. She is young and she has a right to enjoy her lifetime. In a harsh educational environment, she lost a freedom as her age. I wanted to change her words and make the words to be read in a various way and depending on different perspectives of each person. I want each own stories in people’s mind to be a trigger in various contexts.

Glendale, LA is an area where more than 50% of the population are Armenians. Armenia is a country with a tragic history of ethnic genocide under the tyranny of the Osman Empire. The local community of Glendale expressed deep sympathy with the 'Japanese Military Comfort Women' issue of Korea, and has paid special attention to the issue. As a result, on July 30, 2013, the 'Korean Comfort Women Statue’ was erected in the Glendale Central Park in front of the Glendale Central Library, public land of the municipal government of Glendale, LA, USA, for the first time outside of Korea.

The <might be happy someday> series was exhibited in Glendale in July 2014. This artwork installed texts with salt on the floor at the entrance of the Alex Theater, the venue of the 3rd anniversary of Glendale’s Korean Comfort Women Day*, and on the ground and benches in Glendale Central Park, and when people walk on them or touch them, the texts slowly disappeared. We paid attention to the fact that the times of people, who are living in the present in different cultures overlap in a place where its unique history coexists with the history of Korean comfort women, and individual narrations expand into a common memory. The landscape is scattered by the steps of people and the wind, melted by rain, and permeates and disappears like teardrops. Like salt that seems to vanish, but does not vanish, and is crystallized again and circulated forever, it proves its existence with absence. Also, white salt that purifies the impure serves as a medium that calls people’s attention to the dignity of man and human suffering.

 * "Comfort Woman" is a euphemistic term that refers to a system of military sexual slavery by the Government of Japan during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of WWII. This system of forced military prostitution by the Government of Japan is considered unprecedented in its cruelty and magnitude, including gang rape, forced abortions, humiliation, and sexual violations resulting in multilation, death, or eventual suicide. It is one of the largest cases of human trafficking in the 20th century. (H. Res. 121) An estimated 200,000 young women, including girls as young as 12 years old from 11 different countries were abducted and deceived into warzone brothels throughout the Asia Pacific region. Many of the women were massacred at the end of the war in an attempt to destroy the evidence of the sexual slavery. Japanese public and private officials are still trying to deny, downplay and whitewash the 'Comfort Women' tradegy and other Japanese war crimes during World War II. The 2nd Abe administration in 2014 made an attempt to revise or rescind the Kono Statement (1993) on the 'Comfort Women', which expressed the Government's sincere aplogies and remorse for their ordeal. The minister of Education in Japan said in 2014 that Kono Statement cannot be included in the school textbook because it was never ratified by the Japanese Diet. "Halmoni", which means grandmother in Korean, is often used to refer to the survivors instead of the euphemistic "comfort women" or the term former "sex slave". There are 36 "Halmonees" in Korea as of August 23, 2017(54 “Halmonees” June 10, 2014), and the victims and activists are still hilding weekly demonstrations in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, demanding Japanese Government to offer a sincere, unequivocal, official apology for the egregious crimes it committed during the war.

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