Constructed Authenticity in Seoul’s Ihwa Mural Village
This essay was written for Prof. Woods-Puckett’s The Arts and Social Change class (AH112) at Minerva University in October of 2021.
If you take a bus north from Seoul Tower, you’ll wander into the maze-like Ihwa Mural Village nestled on the hill near Naksan Park. Colorful painted flowers, birds, and koi fish will swim on the stairs beneath your feet. You’ll be filled with a childlike wonder gazing at the large-scale murals (a woman blowing bubbles, a father and daughter sitting side-by-side) that plaster the residential walls. But underneath the idyllic scenery lies a bittersweet history.
Ihwa Mural Village
After the Korean War, like many “moon villages,” Ihwa was inhabited by poor and working-class people who couldn't afford housing in flat or central parts of the city. The neighborhood was slated for demolition until 2006, when the government's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism set about to improve conditions (Holden, 2015). About 70 artists contributed to the Ihwa Mural Village (Son and Limb, 2009). Since 2000, mural paintings have grown in popularity in Korea, and now over 100 mural villages exist across the country (Park et al., 2018). In this paper, I will investigate how the side-by-side Ihwa murals “Fencers” and “Textile Worker” capture the tension engrained in the Mural Village itself—between South Korea’s past economic struggle and modern capitalist image-obsession—and what this means for the changing definition of “authenticity” in this imagined community.
In many ways, the transformation of Ihwa reflects on a smaller scale the transformation of South Korea during the period of rapid economic growth following the Korean War (nicknamed ‘Miracle on the Han River’), when the country turned from one of the poorest in the world to a global capitalist power in the span of a few decades. Like how South Korea’s transformation shifted and amplified conceptions of national identity (particularly on an international stage), Ihwa’s transformation into a picture-perfect mural village shifted how locals interacted with their homes and day-to-day lives (So et al., 2012). In this way, the murals have helped create what Anderson (1983) calls an ‘imagined community’ within Seoul, centered around public art. Before the ‘beautification’ of Ihwa, the neighborhood was an unremarkable working-class neighborhood; now it’s spotted in tour guides, K-dramas, and famous people’s Instagrams.
However, not all change has been positive. Many residents of Ihwa Mural Village are uncomfortable with their homes being turned into social media backdrops: there have been numerous complaints about noise, graffiti, litter, and excessive picture-taking from tourists. One resident painted over a famous mural of flowers worth 42.6 million won, telling police that “it was difficult to live due to the excessive noise as tourists flocked to the village after the mural village was built” (Park, 2016). In response to residents’ complaints, Jongno-gu has run the “Silent Campaign” since 2013, which aims to spread a nonintrusive and quiet sightseeing culture. (Kim, 2016).
This tension, between long-term residents and the recent touristic boom, could not be better exemplified than in the two murals “Fencers” and “Textile Worker” painted side-by-side on an underpass in Ihwa. “Fencers” depicts a side view of two foil fencers in the middle of a bout. The figures are life-size and appear to float in the air due to the lack of a background; the left fencer stands in a ready position, while the right fencer lunges. However, instead of foils, they carry selfie sticks: the two athletes are so absorbed in their own self-image that they neglect the sport itself. This could be interpreted as a commentary on the image-obsessed consumerist culture fueling Ihwa’s destructive tourism.
“Textile Worker” appears to the right of “Fencers,” and is larger-than-life. The mural depicts the head and shoulders of a woman in blue wearing glasses, working at a sewing machine. Her expression is one of determination and dignity. The woman’s head is large and spills over the top of the tiled wall, bringing the artwork out of the frame and thus emphasizing her importance.
The two murals, side by side.
The side-by-side placement of these artworks provides a stark contrast for passerby. Since “Textile Worker” is situated behind “Fencers” (in fact, one fencer is placed directly in front of the sewing machine), it gives the illusion of a ‘back’ and a ‘forward,’ a ‘past’ and a ‘present.’ This effect is amplified when one considers the historical context. Before the turn of the century, many lower-class residents of Ihwa worked in nearby textile and garment industries in Changsin-dong, selling items at Dongdaemun Market (Flinn, 2015). By making a textile worker its focus, this mural connects directly to the neighborhood’s past, and by placing it behind the selfie-taking fencers, the artists demonstrate the neighborhood’s (and South Korea’s) changing economic landscape.
Unlike “Fencers,” which is overrun with graffiti, “Textile Worker” is largely untouched. Perhaps visitors believe “Textile Worker” to be more ‘authentically’ connected to the community’s history and culture, evoking nostalgia and thus deserving of respect. However, I argue that both murals represent the “authenticity” of Ihwa: the images exemplify the daily struggles of Ihwa’s inhabitants, albeit at two different time periods. Shlossberg (2015) argues that modern authenticity is constructed, with tourism often becoming inseparable from the imagined community itself. This applies to Ihwa, as the local economy has no doubt benefitted greatly from the influx of visitors. In many ways, tourists searching for a kind of ‘authenticity’ within the Mural Village creates its authenticity, connecting to Park et al.’s (2018) assertion that “the authenticity of tourist destinations within a community portraying mural themes is the outcome of a combination of old community traditions and changes from the past and present.” As time moves forward, it will be interesting to see how Ihwa’s Mural Village adapts to evolving touristic patterns and nationwide developments.
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