hundreds of boats. thousands of mountains (2022)
A-Young Kim (Curator, Gangwon Triennale)
Translated from the original Korean
In Eunu Lee’s video work, images depicting the mountainous landscape of Jinbu are installed on a temporary wall. Each small image is pixelated and assembled into a larger composite image. These constructed images remain capable of being assembled and disassembled. The video shows an elderly man and a young girl from Jinbu appearing together, helping one another to remove the pixelated images.
The title of the work, “Mountains are many and fields are few; the people’s character is gentle and reserved,” is drawn from the phrase describing Gangwon Province in Taengniji (1751), a human geographical treatise written by the Silhak scholar Yi Jung-hwan during the late Joseon Dynasty. This book describes regions with favorable geographical conditions for human habitation from a practical and empirical perspective, offering insight into how scholars of the time understood the nature and people of Gangwon Province.
During his research in Jinbu, the artist encountered two reports—“The Demographic Structure of Gangwon Province and Its Implications” (Gangwon Research Institute, 2017) and “Status of Responses to Demographic Change I” (Board of Audit and Inspection, 2021)—which document recent migration trends among the province’s residents. These reports emphasize the necessity of change in Gangwon Province as a response to population decline. Confronted with these transformations occurring under the premise of change, the artist began to reflect on fundamental questions: What is history to us? What should be passed on to future generations? And what, in turn, will they pass on to those who follow?
Upon encountering statistical data showing the decline in both elderly and elementary school–aged populations in Jinbu, the artist recalled Peter Paul Rubens’ painting Old Woman and Boy with Candles. He explains that the image of “the child leaning on the elderly, and the elderly guiding the child” became a source of inspiration, ultimately leading him to create a video work featuring an elderly man and a young girl from Jinbu.
The title, “Mountains are many and fields are few; the people’s character is gentle and reserved,” once again references Yi Jung-hwan’s Taengniji (1751), reflecting a historical perception of Gangwon Province as a place defined by geographical conditions conducive to human life. This perspective resonates with the artist’s own vision and aspiration for the region.
Witnessing the ongoing transformations in Gangwon under the name of progress, the artist poses a series of questions: What is history to us? What should be passed on to future generations? And what will those generations pass on in turn?
The pixelated landscape images in the work evoke the notion of nature as something assembled and constructed. The act of dismantling and reassembling these images, performed by the elderly man and the young girl, becomes a continuous gesture—one that repeatedly returns to the artist’s central question of what must ultimately be transmitted to those who come after.