Yeoreum Jeong
Graeae: A Stationed Idea, 2022
단채널 비디오
33분 5초
Single-channel video
33 min 5 sec
Yeoreum Jeong began to conceptualize Graeae: A Stationed Idea, a film constructed entirely out of found images and footage, when she accidentally encountered virtual Pokémon monuments across the Yongsan US Garrison while playing the augmented reality mobile game Pokémon GO. This took her by surprise because the territory of the US military base, covering some 600 acres of land, appears merely as a “green area” on the civilian map due to military and security purposes. Guided by questions about the (in)visibility of a place, the film follows Jeong as she employs the virtual monuments (which are registered and mapped onto existing structures by players) as entry points to access otherwise strictly forbidden, invisible parts of Seoul. Through her journey, Jeong succeeds in tracing the history of Yongsan as a site where foreign powers have maintained military bases, which in turn shaped the course of Korea’s modern history. Through its compelling narrative, Graeae: A Stationed Idea reveals the role militarization plays in shaping geopolitics.
Jeong Yeoreum reframes the story about a correlation between space and memory into
visual language. Her work is a continuous process of fixated reinvestigation on a
narrative, analyzing its mechanism and dismantling the body from parts. Her recent
group exhibitions include Objects in Mirror are close than they appear (OCAT
Shanghai, 2021), Virtual Station 2 (Cultural Station Seoul 284, 2021), OB/SCENE
Space: Focus (Space Seoro, 2021). Her films have been shown at various international
film festivals, including Indie Forum, Seoul; DMZ International Documentary Film
Festival, Goyang.
Yeoreum Jeong, Graeae: A Stationed Idea, 2020, still. Courtesy of the artist.