“Sindoan”: Dissident Memories of Modern Korean History in a Cinematic Revision of Korean Minjung Art

Sindoan (2008), a work of video art by a South Korean artist, Park Chan-kyong (b. 1965), traces the hidden history of Sindoan, a mysterious town in southern Korea. This town, a center for indigenous beliefs and a shelter for oppressed people, emblematizes the Korean people’s bittersweet modern history and forgotten dreams. Park examines the lost history of the town through photographs, films, and documentaries that have been produced in modern Korea. He also enables these dissident visual memories to combine or collide with each other. Park’s video at times evokes an aesthetic that reminds viewers of Korean minjung (common people) artists’ paintings. The work thereby functions in part like an archive that comments on modern Korean history and minjung art. Examining Sindoan, particularly in its relation to minjung art and Park’s broader oeuvre, this essay seeks to explicate how the artwork represents modern Korean history through multimedia and performances, in effect inheriting and expanding the cultural meanings of minjung art.