Kwon Sun Kwan

Kwon Sun Kwan continues to deal with victims and sites of tragic events in the modern and contemporary Korean history such as the Jeju April 3 Massacre and the No Gun Ri Massacre through photography, installation, and other media. His works criticize distorted historical recognition and collective amnesia within the Korean society and call attention to the truth that should be remembered through the sensibility of the present. In forests that are believed to be sites of the massacres, he documents trees and grasses as if they had grown from the flesh and bones of the dead. From the sea, he conjures up images of foaming waves that might have been the final sight of those lost to the waters. Through the form of animals emerging from red smoke, he metaphorically conveys both social violence and sacrifice while also suggesting vitality and the spirit of resistance. Rather than recreating massacres directly, he constructs images from traces of tragedy and the sensation of absence, destruction, and silence. This way, his works eventually summon the hidden memory of violence into the present.