Hannahlisa Kunyik: Measuring Paju 2025 Photo: Seowon Nam
Edition Westlicht: 18 × 24cm / 30
Yoojin Jang The work of Hannahlisa Kunyik starts right from the “place.” On an exceptionally scorching summer day in Seoul, Kunyik went to the roof of a building, rolled downhill, sat in front of the ammunition depot, and lay down on the floor of the park. Where the invisible boundary created a clearer limit than anything else, and where those who lived in history have been passing away as time passes, she put her body to the ground and listen to the story. “Measuring Paju” was performed at Imjingak Pyeonghwa Nuri, which has become a comfortable and playful park today, though it is physically near the civilian control line. Her body, lying with her face on a sunny walk, was duplicated into two large prints and attached to an iron plate on the way to the gondola lift which heads to the civilian control zone. What does a double body mean? Are the two prints with different wrinkles created by the temperature changes the same or at least similar? Or does it reveal a complete difference? Is it an outsider’s ambivalent or overlapping gaze? How is Paju measured using Kunyik as a medium different from Paju measured by geopolitical, economic, historical, and cultural standards? The place is still there, waiting to answer all these questions.