3-channel blackand- white video, directional sound
Citizen’s Forest was inspired by the artist’s affection for The Lemures, an incomplete painting by Korean artist Oh Yoon (1946– 1986), and Colossal Roots, a poem written by Korean poet Kim Sooyoung (1921–1968). The Lemures (1984) is a panoramic sketch depicting a procession of victims from major incidents in Korean modern history, including the Donhak Peasant Revolution, the Korean War, and the Gwangju Uprising. Colossal Roots (1964) is a poem that takes into account the layers of unconditional acceptance of ‘tradition’ while subverting the orientalist’s perspective. Citizen’s Forest serves as a contemporary platform that beckons the interests shared by these two works on historical trauma and the ‘Asian Gothic’ imagination. Derived from shan-su (landscape) paintings mounted on scrolls, spectators are invited to walk through a haunted dark corridor with ghostly spirits of the forest, or rather the approximation of ‘ghostly’ elements inherent to the conventional performed actions of the characters. Regardless of its allegorical allusion to history or tradition, these vengeful citizens (indeed, lemures) seem fully aware of the contemporary apathy towards their existence.
