LANDSCAPE SECTION: BORDER: NORTH/SOUTH KOREA (2008)

Wood, plywood, foam, plastic, metal, paint, branches, dirt, and other natural materials.
4′ × 2′ × 5.75′

The Border: North/South Korea sculpture is based upon copious photo documentation of the North/South Korean border landscape produced by the international press.  South Korea and North Korea maintain one of the world’s most diverse wildlife sanctuaries in the DMZ, an area that has been virtually untouched since 1953. The uninhabited zone has become a haven for a multitude of wildlife, particularly migrating birds. Utilizing extensive news coverage, this sculpture depicts a sanctuary in what is one of the most dangerous border zones in the world. The migratory birds in the DMZ zone freely travel this dangerous border.  The chance development of a nature preserve in this very precarious area between the North and South is an ironic twist, given the divisive politics underlying the creation of DMZ.

This sculpture is part of a series of miniaturized landscape sections representing the borders/crossings between countries in varying degrees of conflicts with their neighbor. In this series, each of the borders is symbolic of significant global issues in the world today, which have been placed by the media in the mind’s eye of the world’s public. These borders have unintentionally becomes world icons. They are often barren lands devoid of people except for the occasional border outpost, border crossing station, or border town. Their barrenness is often due to defensive design, or to lack of infrastructure and accessibility. Most of these borders have flourishing environments unhampered by man, and not destabilized by urbanization and industrialization. These sculptures take a section from nature as a still image of an environment in transition: either being destroyed or healing.