Das Dritte Land
Seok Hyun Han, Seunghwoe Kim
23.05. 2019 - 30.04.2023
Matthäikirchplatz, Beriln-Kulturforum

In Han Seok Hyun and Kim Seung Hwoe's garden, plants from both North and South Korea grow together, creating an image of a paradisiacal Korea. In the spirit of Michel Foucault, it is a place of heterotopia, where the real and the imagined intersect, where seemingly immovable facts coexist with unfounded utopias. The garden takes inspiration from the "Baekdu-daegan" mountain range, which spans 1,470 kilometers across the Korean peninsula, from Mount Baekdusan in the north to Mount Jirisan in the south. "Baekdu-daegan" is considered the backbone of Korea, shaping its mountains, valleys, and rivers, influencing the region's flora and fauna, and even leaving an imprint on Korea's culture and language.

Despite the division since the Korean War, Baekdu-daegan remains a significant presence in both countries, with its geological, ecological, and cultural-historical importance. Inspired by these shared contexts, the artists have designed a garden that mimics a mountainous landscape. Aesthetically, they draw from the tradition of Korean "true landscape painting" (jingyeong sansuhwa) of the Joseon period. The painter Jeong Seon (1676-1759) was instrumental in introducing explicitly "Korean" painting into East Asian art history. Unlike other landscape painters of his time, who depicted famous scenes based on Chinese models or copied nature from scholarly works, Jeong Seon captured the actual topography of well-known Korean places.

Han Seok Hyun and Kim Seung Hwoe explicitly reference Jeong Seon’s painting *Inwang jesaekdo* (1751). The prominent rocks of Inwang Mountain, the mist, and the trees, composed with simplicity yet boldness, offer a panoramic view of the mountain in Seoul. The black-and-white contrast of the ink painting highlights a winding forest path and captures the moment just after a rain shower. The magic of this painting, which gives the viewer the sensation of wandering through both a real and surreal landscape, is brought to life by the artists in their garden. White blooming wildflowers from both South and North Korea, the mountains of Baekdu-daegan recreated from black basalt stones, and the rising water vapor are the key elements whose interplay brings forth “Das Dritte Land.”