CHILD SOLDIER

Child Soldier (2017) is a digital video made by photographing each scene with a 35mm film camera and scanning and editing the photographs to be projected with sound. The photographs depict a North Korean soldier–a young boy–who wanders the woods, seemingly with no intention. Showing tender moments of childhood—playful and mundane—PARK shows the humanistic sides of a North Korean soldier. These images of childhood contrast with the image of North Korea that is often constructed by the media—an image marked by militant patriarchal violence and radical ideologies that in North Korea’s political and social realms. PARK was inspired by his mother’s personal account of encountering a North Korean soldier. As his mother had also grown up with a vilified perception of the North, she was shocked to see that the “North Korean soldier” was just a child running around with a gun. PARK’s mother had always associated North Korean soldiers with vandals, and was caught off guard by the presence of a child and the resultant realization that the image created by government propaganda was false. Deeply influenced by this realization, PARK wanted to show North Korea in its most vulnerable form, in contrast to the common image of North Korea as a vicious threat. In challenging this popular image of North Korea, constructed through years of propaganda against Communism, PARK replaced the perceived image of the country as a violent and war-driven country with moments of innocence. The scenes and narrative in Child Soldier question the construction of South Korea’s public perception of the North, and also attempt to present a new perception devoid of political ideologies and associations with war.  (Real DMZ 2017)

​

​

2023 The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, D.C.

2019 Aichi Triennale 2019: Taming Y/Our Passion, Aichi Arts Center/Nagoya City Art Museum, Nagoya, Japan 

2018 DMZ PEACE PROJECT, Camp Greaves, Paju, Korea

​