Namdeok Kim Photo Exhibition ‘Koryeo people, Goryeo people, Kareitsu’ [청계천 옆 사진관]

2024-04-17 23:59:21

If a photojournalist who takes pictures for newspapers every day develops into a writer, I think there will be a life like that of writer Kim Nam-deok at the peak. Writer Kim, who is currently the deputy director in charge of photography and video at the Gangwon Ilbo editorial office, published an art travel photo book called “Wayusansoo” in 2022 with funding from 114 Chuncheon citizens. It was a project to compare the true landscape landscapes of painters at the time with the current landscape 200 years later, with the motif of Kim Hong-do’s trip to paint scenic spots around Gangwon-do under the order of King Jeongjo. The spectacular scenery of Gyeongpodae, Geumgangsan Mountain, East Sea, Seoraksan Mountain, Yangyang, Cheorwon, Chuncheon, Uljin, and Pohang was explained with past and present images. As the name suggests, it was the result of a landscape painting trip while lying down.

A photo exhibition titled “Koryo people, Koryo people, Корейцы” will be held, summarizing the different perspectives of artist Kim, who has worked on a variety of photographs with the theme of nature and people.

Koreans call themselves Koryoins, but Koryoins call themselves Goryeo people. The Russian word is ‘Kareits (Корейцы)’. This exhibition began with the artist’s photography of Koryo people he met while visiting Russia’s Maritime Province in 2013, and was created over a long period of time to include the Koryo people he met in Gyeongju last year. This is the artist’s 14th solo exhibition.

Koryoins are people who immigrated to present-day Russia and the former Soviet Union (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, etc.) through agricultural immigration, anti-Japanese independence movement, and forced mobilization from around 1860 until liberation on August 15, 1945. It refers to that relative.

Even after being forcibly relocated to Central Asia in 1937 by the oppressive Stalin regime, the Koryo people continued to build their lives with strong vitality. Although they were loaded onto trains and thrown into the empty plains, the Koryo people pioneered the barren lands of Central Asia and settled down quickly, cultivating rice and cotton farms, giving birth to exemplary Koryo collective farms (kolkhos). The Koryo community, which had a population of about 300,000 until the 1960s, produced about 200 socialist labor heroes, mainly in the agricultural field.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, a significant number of Koryo people immigrated to the Russian Far East, especially the Maritime Province. Since the mid-2000s, the number of ethnic Koreans returning to Korea has increased, and the number has increased significantly every year since the mid-2010s. According to immigration statistics, the number of Koryo people living in Korea is 85,072 as of April 2020, and the proportion by country is 46% in Uzbekistan, 33% in Russia, and 15% in Kazakhstan. It is expected that more than 200,000 Koryo people will have settled in their homeland by 2024. They live in large numbers in Ansan, Asan, Incheon, Gyeongju, and Gwangju (metropolitan cities), and Daetgol Village in Ansan, Koryoin Village in Gwangju, and Seonggeon-dong in Gyeongju are known as group residences.

Koryo people have a strong sense of community that has developed from sharing life and destiny for over 170 years. All Koryo people live as one family and brothers.

Author Kim Nam-deok met Koreans in Vladivostok, Russia in 2013. They were people who had immigrated back to the Maritime Province from Central Asia. “The words are different, but there was a strong force that pulled at my heart. Ah, this is the feeling called roots. “The feeling that we are one people who share the same roots.” Artist Kim’s work began at this time.

More than 5,000 Koryo people live in Seonggeon-dong, Gyeongju. We looked into their lives and recorded them through photographs. Professor Bazim Akulenko, who is affiliated with the Department of Korean Studies at the Russian Far Eastern Federal University and is in Korea as a research professor at Chung-Ang University, accompanied us and provided interpretation and historical background.

There was a painful history of the country losing power and failing to take care of the lives of its people. 160 years have passed since I left my hometown and crossed the border to survive. The people of Goryeo are still continuing their arduous journey of life. “I hope that today’s exhibition will be a time of comfort to the Kareits (Корейцы) who have traveled a long way to visit their ancestors’ hometowns,” the artist said.

● Exhibition title: Goryeo people, Goryeo people, Корейцы
● date: April 20 – May 19, 2024
● location: Meetup Coffee House (174-9 Seonggeon-dong, Gyeongju-si)

Reporter Byun Young-wook [email protected]

2024-04-17 23:59:21