The weather has been much nicer the last few days, and all of the snow has pretty much melted. Today, I went across town to spend some time in Jung-oe Park. One of my hagwon students told me this is one of the coolest places in Gwangju. Which isn’t saying much...but I was bored and took the advice anyway. The park blew away my low expectations, and I inadvertently learned a lot about the history of Gwangju just by visiting. Established by the Biennale Foundation, the entire area is basically one huge art exhibition. 
The park is decorated with scattered sculptures and bas-reliefs, and is the home of the Gwangju Museum of Art, the Gwangju Folk Museum, and the Gwangju Biennale. Also the park was filled with a bunch of kids running around flying kites, elderly men in track suits playing badminton, etc. There’s even an amusement park with one of those rides that makes you sick just by watching it. 
The Gwangju Museum of Art is currently featuring an exhibit called Democracy, Human Rights, and Gwangju, which, according to the pamphlet, “shows the meaning of democracy, the importance of human rights, and the sublime Gwangju spirit”. The exhibition depicts the recent history of Gwangju, from Japanese imperialism to present. The vast array of subjects ranges from the human rights of Korean residents in Japan to American capitalism and military dictatorship. A large part of the exhibit depicts the Gwangju Massacre on May 18, 1980 (also known as 518, or the Gwangju Democratization Movement), in which a number of university students had an uprising against the military dictatorship in place at the time. The Korean Army killed 
more than 100 students, and the uprising was defeated. But 518 was the first in a series of uprisings across Korea and is seen as the basis of modern Korean democracy. Three artists collaborated on the project, each using a different technique: oil on canvas, woodcutting, and serigraphy. To the left is a serigraphy by Park Bul-dong satirizing American imperialism, and to the right is a series of woodcuts by Hong Sung-dam depicting the spirit of Gwangju.
I found the Gwangju Folk Museum a little bit less impressive, but offers a pretty nice glimpse of how Gwangju has evolved from a farming community to the industrial city it is today. I enjoyed this translation of the Summary of Exhibition: “You would appreciate the story of Gwangju, a district of light and a city where the life and hearts of Namdo people get joined together, streets possessing the history of sorrow and the tremor of excitement extends like a river, a big and strong Mt. Mudeung 
let go the weight of time like anchor with old photos.” Let’s ignore the grammar issues and the fact that it’s one long, rambling run-on sentence and appreciate the vivid imagery. I seriously wonder who translates these things…is there not ONE bilingual person in the city of 1.5 million who could have done a better job? But I digress.
Even though there’s barely a single word of English in the entire museum, I really enjoyed the Gwangju Biennale. The names and descriptions of the paintings were all in Korean…but art is all about using your imagination anyway, right? Right. I'll leave you here with a few of my favorite paintings from the Biennale, which I took the liberty to name myself:
Barcode Centaur
One Big Happy Family
Trippy Butterflies
Pocket Change. It doesn’t take much for something to be called art. This is literally just a coat hanging from the wall with an LCD screen sewn into the pocket that fills up with change and then empties. And a repetitive soundtrack of coins clanging together is playing from some speakers on the ground...genius.
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