“Das dritte Land” (The Third Country), a temporary art garden in Berlin, is a space where Germany and the two Koreas can share the pain of division and the importance of reunification. The three South Korean artists who built the garden keep their fingers crossed for inter-Korean relations to improve and for North Korea to send its plants and flowers to complete their project.
Near the remains of the Berlin Wall lies an art garden that promotes a unique theme: “Nature Knows No Borders.” Here, visitors can enjoy a landscape adorned with plants and flowers from across the Korean peninsula, imagining that land as undivided. The atmosphere exudes an appeal to quietly pray for peace and reconciliation.
Kim Keum-hwa, the curator of a contemporary art planning agency in Berlin and manager of the garden project, calls the floral work “The Third Country.” She borrowed the idea from Jacopo Bonfadio, an Italian humanist and historian of the Renaissance period who defined gardens as “terza natura,” or a “third nature” – a natural space created and upgraded by man to the level of art.
“Humans created gardens because of their yearning for nature and desire to establish order within it,” Kim says. “The name of this garden reflects that idea. It is intended to spark a utopian imagination about the Korean peninsula so that visitors can look beyond the present day of our divided land.” The Berlin garden’s centerpiece is a model of the Baekdu Daegan chain of mountains, a theme inspired by “Clearing After Rain in Mt. Inwang” (Inwang jesaekdo), an ink and wash landscape painting of the 18th-century Joseon era which is well-known not only in both Koreas but abroad as well.
The Baekdu Daegan (Great White Head Ridge) mountain chain forms the backbone of the Korean peninsula. It flows like a colossal river, aptly starting with the peninsula’s highest peak, Mt. Paektu (a.k.a. Mt. Baekdu), on the northern border, passing through Mt. Kumgang (a.k.a. Mt. Geumgang) and Mt. Seorak, and reaching Mt. Jiri and the south coast.
Installation artists Han Seok-hyun (left) and Kim Seung-hwoe tend to “Das dritte Land” (The Third Country), a temporary art garden which opened in Berlin in May 2019. Marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and wishing for peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula, the garden is at Potsdamer Platz, near the wall’s remains. It will be open until October 2020.
Windflowers, which grow in an alpine climate north of the central part of the Korean peninsula, are in full bloom. To give an impression of an ink and wash landscape painting, windflowers and other white wildflowers, such as creeping catchfly, European starflower, silver meadow-rue and gooseneck loosestrife, were planted in a bed of soil on black rocks.
Collaboration
The garden, built in the Kulturforum at Potsdamer Platz, is the result of a threeyear collaboration involving Kim and two installation artists, Han Seok-hyun and Kim Seung-hwoe. Its opening on May 23, 2019 was among many events of the year commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Kim Keum-hwa managed overall planning while Han conceived of the visual representation of ideas for the project and Kim Seung-hwoe arranged and organized the plants and flowers.
Han seeks to combine contemporary art and ecological practices, shuttling between Berlin and Seoul. Kim Seung-hwoe focuses on social, urban-architectural and ecological changes that have arisen around the Berlin Wall before and after its fall. He uses public art as a tool to enable communication between art and landscape.
Han conceived of the idea of an art garden when he was a resident artist in Berlin. He explains, “When I first arrived in Berlin in the spring of 2016, everybody here looked so peaceful and happy. It occurred to me that the reunification of Germany brought them stability and peace. I was moved to tears when I watched a documentary about the moment that the Berlin Wall came down.
“I thought it would be necessary for both North and South Koreans to meet and talk with each other more often instead of simply waiting for a political decision to materialize, just as the Germans achieved their reunification after both sides expressed their desire for it and began to travel freely among themselves. Then it flashed through my mind that I hadn’t talked with anyone about Korean unification for over a decade. I suddenly felt like working on something related to the two Koreas.”
The two artists built a replica Baekdu Daegan (Great White Head Ridge) with basalt and soil and installed a water mist system to produce fog to create the image of the chain of mountains, which Koreans regard as the backbone of their territory.
“Everybody told me it’d be impossible when I said we wanted to plant flowers from North Korea in this garden. But I believed that it was an artist’s duty to give wings to the imagination of visitors by making what looks impossible possible.”
The Vision
“Das dritte Land” (The Third Country), covering 1,250 square meters (25 × 50 m), is located in front of St. Matthew Church. The artists originally planned to put together 3,000 plants representing 60 varieties (37 from South Korea and 23 from North Korea). However, North Korea’s tepid response limited the garden to only 1,500 plants of 45 varieties (31 South Korean and 14 North Korean).
Han believes that the geographical features of the Baekdu Daegan have had a significant impact on the cultural and emotional homogeneity of ethnic Koreans. The uninterrupted chain of mountains running through the Korean peninsula is now a treasure trove of ecological biodiversity. In the process of designing the garden, Han contemplated how to visually express such symbolism.
“Clearing After Rain in Mt. Inwang” was drawn by Jeong Seon (pen name Gyeomjae; 1676-1759), who pioneered the art of real-life landscape with his paintings depicting actual Korean scenery, a departure from the conventional conceptual landscapes of previous eras. Han regards the work as a masterpiece that reflects the cultural sensibilities handed down on both sides of the divided peninsula. “With this cultural background in mind, I wanted to express the beauty of the foot of a mountain shrouded in a thick, swirling fog after rain,” he said.
He thought over and over about how to embody the landscape of Korean mountains in garden art. Finally, he was able to create the effect of an ink and wash painting with white wildflowers coming into bloom beneath a black rock and a water mist system to produce fog. He used basalt and soil to create a miniature model of the Baekdu Daegan, conjuring up a dreamy atmosphere as if it is shrouded in a thick cloud of fog.
The Opening
The garden project did not transpire unencumbered. Obtaining administrative approval to build a park from the Berlin Industrial Development and Park Authority was the highest hurdle. A maze of regulations had to be navigated and compromises reached to manifest the artists’ ideas while also satisfying local standards and specifications for civil engineering works.
Next, a financial problem cropped up. Fortunately, crowdfunding successfully garnered 32,500 euros just two months before the garden’s opening. In this process, famous actors and musicians back in South Korea sent messages of encouragement, with donations coming in from the Arts Council Korea, the Korean Cultural Center in Germany and the Hans and Charlotte Krull Foundation, as well as from individual donors.
The project finally kicked off on a hopeful note. Jo Sumi, a world-famous soprano, performed on the opening day. She said, “I wanted to give my best wishes to the organizers of this art garden built for peace and inter-Korean exchange in Berlin, a symbol of the division of Germany and of its reunification.” In addition, Ju Bo-ra, a gayageum player, performed duets with Jin Sung-eun, a player of handpan, a fusion percussion instrument.
Lee Lang, a singer-songwriter who rose to fame for a performance of the North Korean song “Imjin River” created with sign language, gave a concert on June 7 at St. Matthew Church. On November 8, Venerable Jeong Kwan, a Buddhist nun and chef, presented an assortment of vegetarian temple dishes at the church, wishing for Korean unification. Berlin-based artists from various countries also performed at opening events organized by curator Kim Keum-hwa under the theme of “Borders and Utopia, Politics and Arts.”
Initially scheduled to last six months, the garden has been extended to October 30, 2020 thanks to support and encouragement from Berlin citizens and the cultural office of the borough of Mitte. Yet the garden still falls short of what the artists envisaged.
North Korean officials had been cooperative during the initial stages, but backed off from the project after the second U.S.-North Korea summit broke down in Hanoi in February 2019. Consequently, the garden currently has only 1,500 plants and flowers of 45 varieties, about half of the 3,000 items of 60 varieties originally planned. Wildflowers from the Baekdudaegan National Arboretum in Bonghwa in the South Korean province of North Gyeongsang had to be brought in as substitutes for plants indigenous to the North Korean side of the mountain chain.
Substitutes
The three artists are still trying hard to procure North Korean plants and flowers to make the exhibition whole and perfect. They are in contact with the Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum of the Free University of Berlin; the Korea National Arboretum in Gwangneung, in South Korea’s Gyeonggi Province; and the Central Botanical Garden in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.
“Everybody told me it’d be impossible when I said we wanted to plant flowers from North Korea in this garden,” Han said. “But I believed that it was an artist’s duty to give wings to the imagination of visitors by making what looks impossible possible.”
Desperately and resolutely, he went on, “We’ll keep trying to turn our imagination into reality. We’d be happy if we had a chance to see people from both Koreas chat over Korean rice wine, makgeolli, in this garden before too long.”
Meanwhile, Kim Keum-hwa said wistfully, “I just hope that inter-Korean dialogue will proceed smoothly and ecologists from the two sides can gather together in this garden to hold a symposium on plants of the Baekdu mountain chain.”
한국국제교류재단
