HAUNTED KOREAS: Dreaming Unification Protest Peace

Exhibition

HAUNTED KOREAS

Dreaming Unification Protest Peace

Mina Cheon with Kim Il Soon

February 12 – May 17 (March 17-22)

Monday – Saturday 11 am – 4 pm

Asian Arts Gallery, Center for the Arts, Towson University

1 Fine Arts Drive, Towson, MD 21204

View the most extensive collection of global activist artist Mina Cheon’s series of “Unification Dream” paintings, a new perspective on the flags of a unified Korea. Each of these paintings, born from the artist’s stream of unconsciousness, is a powerful peace protest, shedding light on the intricacies of communication, love, and a shared vision of a harmonious future for North and South Korea. The call for unification within the Koreas is a concerted effort to desire peace on earth, because to dream for global peace is about healing and reconciliation of tempered worlds divided.

In her dream state, Cheon, along with her North Korean counterpart and art persona, Kim Il Soon, transcends physical borders and cultural boundaries. They enter a realm of imagination where dreaming is a powerful catalyst for envisioning a peaceful world. Her aspiration for peace in the Korean peninsula amidst escalated global warfare is to examine the complexities of ideological, political, economic, and religious divisions witnessed in everyday lives and to offer this call for global harmony that inspires us all as a form of cultural protest.

Artists Mina Cheon and/with Kim Il Soon are the creators of the provocative political pop art known as POLIPOP. This art form is not just visually accessible, but also inclusive by its invitation of the subject matter leaning towards peace for all. With its eye-catching, colorful “pop art” work, the art is layered by cultural comparative studies and inquiries into current global geopolitics. Wars are lucrative, and peace is an expensive endeavor. Using the rhetoric of pop art, the political statement is about unity and peace on earth, inviting everyone to be part of the conversation.

This exhibition is in part an extended version of Mina Cheon’s “Haunted Koreas,” which was her 2022 solo show at the American University Museum in Washington DC, with select pieces coming from the Inaugural 2020-2021 Asia Society Triennale and Cheon’s 2021 solo exhibition at the Korea Society, New York respectively.

Image - Dreaming Unification: Oori (우리) Protest for Peace by Mina Cheon with Kim Il Soon, 2019.

Host or Publisher Asian Arts & Culture Center at Towson University