FRONTLINE PEACE OBSERVATORY

(2015)

Single channel video. 10 minute loop.

Set on South Korea's heavily fortified border with North Korea, the Cheorwon Peace Observatory provides a lookout for tourist to peer over the vast and empty landscape of the demilitarized zone that separates the two countries. In the nearby Peace Hall, a diorama presents a rendition of that demilitarized zone.

Frontline Peace Observatory, a 10 minute loop video made from still photographs, contrast the "real" vs. the "artificial" presentations of this contested landscape. The two segments blend into each other and mirror each other, with each shot in each segment being mirrored in the corresponding shot of the other segment. The video is thus constructed as a ring structure (Chiastic structure), a literary technique often employed in classic literature and myth.