Adrian Göllner
My identify is Adrian Göllner, an artist and birder from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. This September I travelled to South Korea for 3 weeks to participate in an arts residency in Yangji-ri, Cheorwon County. When there, I used to be a visitor of Birds Korea Yeoncheon on the Yeoncheon Imjin River Biosphere for 2 days. Proper from the outset, let me state my gratitude to Yeoncheon County and the Biosphere Reserve for his or her assist in getting permission to entry the CCZ and for the professional steerage I acquired from Dr Moores and Mr Baek Seung Kwang.
The artworks created by means of the Yangji-ri Residency change into a part of a travelling exhibition sponsored collectively by the REAL DMZ PROJECT of Seoul and the Korean Cultural Centres in numerous international locations. The intention is to analyze the present that means and standing of the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Final fall I realized that one of many incarnations of the exhibition was to be mounted in my hometown of Ottawa. As I birder I knew that the DMZ is without doubt one of the uncommon locations on Earth through which people have been extricated and nature has reasserted itself. I contacted the organizers and proposed to journey to Korea, bear witness to the birds of the DMZ, and create an paintings that speaks to twin incidence of pure magnificence and menace. The proposal was accepted, and my son Gray and I travelled to Korea on the finish of August to start probing the southern perimeter of the DMZ and Civilian Managed Zone (CCZ) for birds.
In my thoughts the DMZ was a really strictly outlined 4x248km strip that constituted a nature reserve of unprecedented purity and consistency. I additionally knew the largely agrarian CCZ supported the avian inhabitants of the DMZ. To my shock and slight disappointment, the DMZ was not as pristine as I had imagined. I had thought {that a} single footstep into the DMZ would breach the 1953 Armistice between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Democratic Individuals’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and the capturing warfare would resume. Nevertheless, the width of the DMZ now varies enormously alongside its size and the DPRK has been shaving off parts on their aspect for farming. Additional, either side have been positioning navy remark posts effectively inside the DMZ, some opposing towers now being solely 300m aside. Nonetheless, the DMZ and CCZ do certainly mix to help a formidable avian inhabitants and efforts are afoot, together with by means of Birds Korea, to guard what stays. (I’m not telling common readers of this weblog something they don’t already know, however it’s all a revelation to me, and I’m nonetheless processing the importance and potential of this space.) It’s my hope that I my artwork may deliver some consideration to the DMZ as an unintended however important nature reserve.
In 2017 I started a challenge entitled “All of the Birds I Noticed Final 12 months”. I assumed that if I documented each single fowl I noticed over an prolonged interval, I’d be capable to gauge the environmental well being of our downtown neighbourhood in Ottawa. Three years therefore I had a extremely idiosyncratic set of fowl knowledge with which to create artwork. Whereas I knew nothing conclusive might be drawn from my knowledge, my hyper-attunement to my environment was demonstrative. To see one individual’s complete 12 months of avian encounters displayed as one massive cascade of birds was not solely pleasantly overwhelming, but it surely additionally advised that others may pay higher consideration to their respective environments. I assumed I’d deliver an identical methodology to an paintings concerning the birds of the DMZ, however this required information of its birds and terrain, of which I had neither, so I reached out to Birds Korea. Dr. Moores responded and advised we go to the Yeoncheon Imjin River Biosphere.
On September eighth our troop of 4 surrendered our passports to the CCZ checkpoint and drove into the mist. The morning solar shortly burned off the fog to disclose the productive mixture of rice fields, treed hills, meandering rivers, concrete canals, and grassed meadows. Waterbirds plumbed the harvested fields whereas passerines flew above, and water deer grunted at us from the marsh. That morning we counted 56 fowl species, together with the shock sighting of an Asian Home Martin on the Storm Observatory. This someday far exceeded any expectation I had for birdwatching in Korea, however the subsequent day we went south of Seoul to the Hwaseong Wetlands the place we noticed 70 species, together with Black-faced Spoonbills and the globally endangered Nordmann’s Greenshank. The Hwaseong Wetlands will not be inside the CCZ or DMZ, however as Dr Moores defined, the shore birds and sea birds on the tidal plains are additionally discovered within the disputed Han River Estuary and marine areas of the Korean internal border, so might moderately be included in my record of birds. With the help of Dr Moores and Mr Baek Seung Kwang, I witnessed a complete of 115 fowl species in Korea.
My job upon returning to Canada on September 19th was to shortly create an paintings for the exhibition “Negotiating Borders” that opened in solely 3 weeks time. After just a few false begins I settled on the thought of presenting an alternate mapping of the DMZ, one based mostly on my birdwatching alongside the border space. In direction of this I sewed all my eBird paths right into a one lengthy, wiggly, blue line to be affixed to the gallery wall. Surrounding it might be work of the 115 birds. One among my issues was what model and medium needs to be used to render the birds. If gallery-goers have been to understand the fantastic thing about the birds and the way every is completely advanced to its area of interest in nature, then my portray model would should be pretty real looking, even illustrative. The medium of watercolour advised itself as it’s fast and the inherent vagaries of the medium lends itself to the perceptual challenges of birdwatching. With these questions answered, I painted the birds and ready the opposite parts for the set up. The paintings was efficiently accomplished just a few hours earlier than the opening with the help of Gray.
Far Jap Curlew and Nice-crested Grebe. Adrian Göllner, 2023
Asian Home Martin and Carrion Crow. Adrian Göllner 2023
I nonetheless want time to totally think about the set up and the methods chosen, however the response has been overwhelmingly optimistic, particularly from most people for whom it has been a very long time since they noticed watercolour portray in a up to date gallery.
At a panel dialogue concerning the exhibition the next day, a former Canadian diplomat stated he had examine efforts to designate the DMZ as a nature reserve ought to the ROK and DPRK ever unify. This allowed me to talk – to the extent that I might – concerning the CCZ within the Yeoncheon Imjin River Biosphere and the way it stood because the exemplar of how the DMZ and CCZ can, if sustainable farming methods are employed and improvement saved away, work in tandem to help wealthy biodiversity.
I really feel privileged to have been invited into the CCZ inside the Yeoncheon Imjin River Biosphere and to see for myself the dynamic that exists amongst nature, farming, and the navy. I’ve been regaling my Ottawa birder pals with tales of my expertise, and in doing so I’m conscious how fortunate we’re in Canada to not have an ever-present menace on our borders. I’m now wanting ahead to returning to Korea in December to see the winter migrants, proceed the challenge, and to reconnect with my new pals.
I’ve many individuals and establishments to thank: Yeoncheon County and the Yeoncheon Imjin River Biosphere administration crew, Birds Korea, Birds Korea Yeoncheon, SAW Centre, the REAL DMZ PROJECT, the Korean Cultural Centre Ottawa, our Cheorwon information Chumnee Lee, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and my household.
