Gaya Pottery
2018
244 x 732 cm
Photogram on photo paper glued on painted wooden panel

Exhibition:
A Tale of Two Cities: Narrative Archive of Memories II, GASC, Gimhae, Korea, 2018

Photos: Kim Chan Soo

Universe in the tomb... backwards in time and space...

Gaya is an ancient kingdom that existed in a confederation of small nations all over the Nakdong River estuary, the southern coast and Jiri Mountain in Korea between 42 A.D. and 562 A.D. Geumgwan Gaya that settled in today's Gimhae region had led the early Gaya confederacy during the 3rd-4th century. From the ancient tombs in the Gaya regions were excavated a large number of artifacts and they were potteries in different forms.
After the government formation in the 1950s, the excavation was led by the national agencies as a part of state policy. Particularly in the 1970s, the national land development plan was launched with the aim of establishing infrastructure for high growth.
Found after 1500 years of their production, the Gaya potteries are objects of concrete evidence to infer the times of Gaya, however, they can be highly abstract subject matter as well when viewed in the frame of history formed by time and space. In the imaginary realm allowed by the Gaya potteries as artifacts, time can repeat and move backwards, and creates a new meaning by intersecting in the basic axis of space.