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Shim: American Opens a Cafe at the DMZ

Shim: American Opens a Cafe at the DMZ

The DMZ is dreaming again
Nov 01, 2024 17m
10
1 votes

Synopsis

A cafe is growing, tucked in to the mountainside air raid shelter of the DMZ borderlands. A light light flickers, illuminating the past, present, and future. I'll see you at the DMZ! Shim was a free, one-day pop-up cafe staged in Yangji-ri village’s air raid shelter at the Korean DMZ. Referencing Korean cafe culture’s fixation on third place, the DMZ’s evolution from security tourism, to ecological peace tourism, and its repurposing as art production site, Shim attempts to intervene and align the past and present. Yangji-ri was one of many minbuk propaganda villages established by the Park Chung Hee regime in the 1960s to showcase the farming bounty and prosperity of the south for a North Korean gaze. The village was formerly part of the Civilian Control Line (CCL) until 2013 when it was reterritorialized as a normal part of South Korea.

Title Shim: American Opens a Cafe at the DMZ
Companies
Countries South Korea
Keywords korean war (1950-53), american abroad, asian woman, dmz, south korea, cafe owner, kpop, café
Kim Westfall

Kim Westfall

American Artist
Villagers

Villagers

Themselves
DMZ

DMZ

Self
Kim Westfall

Kim Westfall

Korean cafe worker