Minjun Shin



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The Earthcape to Meet You

Tsushima Museum, Tsushima Museum
4th OCT - 27th OCT 2024 

Credit
Artist - Minjun Shin
Curator - Minsoo Kim
Design - Dongin Min


















Breathing with Layered Memories
Kim Mikyo (Independent Curator, Ph.D. in Art Theory)

The Earthcape to Meet You, a solo exhibition presenting Minjun Shin’s recent video works and installations, was held at the first-floor gallery of the Tsushima Museum from October 5 to 7, 2024. In this exhibition, the artist commemorates and traces the life of his late younger brother, particularly the daily life in Japan that he himself had not fully known. Through interviews with friends of the deceased from both Korea and Japan, and through his own recollections, Shin reconstructs a network of shared memory that transcends national, regional, and temporal boundaries. His narrative—woven through voice-over, interview, and image—begins as a personal story, yet gradually draws the viewer into an emotional space that extends beyond individual grief.

Japan again becomes a significant setting in this body of work. Chikyū Misaki (Cape Earth), mentioned in the exhibition title, is a well-known sunrise spot near Noboribetsu, where the artist’s brother once worked. Guided there by one of his brother’s friends, Shin visits this and other sites where his brother had lived or dreamed of traveling. These journeys form an attempt to “remember” the deceased through a slower, more contemplative rhythm of presence.

Entangling “Cultural Memory” and “Counter-Memory”

Memory, as cultural theorist Jan Assmann suggests, exists only in relation to what binds the living together; fragmented or unshared memories cannot persist. Together with Aleida Assmann, he defines cultural memory through two principal mechanisms: first, its reliance on tangible media—texts, images, monuments, and memorials—to preserve continuity; and second, the ritualized repetition of commemorative events that transform specific histories into shared cultural identity. These institutionalized forms of remembering emphasize historical continuity and collective agreement, but they also risk flattening the multiplicity of individual experience. As contemporary societies have grown more attentive to subjectivity, the field of counter-memory has emerged—personal recollections that exist outside or against official history, expanding what “memory” can mean within a community.

Shin Minjun’s practice intertwines these two modalities—cultural memory and counter-memory—to summon a multifaceted remembrance of his brother within the exhibition space. In the installation Altar for Maitreya and Kṣitigarbha, the artist juxtaposes religious icons—Maitreya of Japan and Kṣitigarbha of Korea, both deities who guide the dead—with his brother’s personal belongings, creating a sculptural form of cultural memory. Meanwhile, in his video works, Shin’s narration of episodes shared with his brother, alongside interviews with friends and former colleagues from his brother’s working holiday in Japan, functions as a counter-memory—a living network of recollection that resists institutional closure.

Remembering as a Bridge Between Past, Present, and Future

Personal memories that fail to meet the standards of institutional credibility—those deemed inconsistent, distorted, subjective, or unverifiable—may nonetheless contain truths that cannot be politically erased. Such recollections reactivate fragments of the past within the present and thus connect time across generations.

For instance, in 2020~, the artist reads letters containing his own memories of his brother; in Jae-eun’s Song, friends recall his brother’s childhood; and in To the Cape Where I Go to Meet You, acquaintances from Japan recount their shared days with him. Together, these stories reveal dimensions of a life far richer than any official record—passport, birth, or death certificate—could preserve.

Although death seems to render a person eternal and unchanging, the memory of the deceased continues to move and fluctuate across time and space. The “distorted” or partially recalled testimonies collected by Shin may, paradoxically, be closer to truth than precise documentation. This truthfulness of distortion becomes a kind of counter-memory, standing in opposition to institutionalized remembrance and reasserting the political and emotional vitality of the personal. Through this practice, Shin goes beyond mourning his brother’s death. By focusing on death and memory, he poses a broader question: within our society, are deaths reduced to mere fragments—consumed and forgotten as functional symbols?

The folding-screen installation Korean Dinner Party portrays the faces of those whose names will never be recorded in history, alongside the individuals who continue to remember them. Though still in its experimental stage, the work suggests a new direction within Shin’s practice—a move from his documentary-style video works toward a materially grounded, object-based form of remembrance.

References

  1. Hye-jin Kim , “Analysis of the Crisis and Transformative Projects of Memory Culture in the Society of Hatred in the 21st Century,” Brecht and Contemporary Theatre, Korean Brecht Society, Vol.49 (2023), pp.163–180.
  2. Young-hee Moon, “Sarah Thornhill – The Counter-Memory Narrative of Kate Grenville’s Apology,” Studies in English Language and Literature, Korean Association of Central English Language and Literature, Vol.63, No.53 (2021), pp.85–107.
  3. Assmann, Aleida. Das neue Unbehagen an der Erinnerung: Eine Intervention. Munich: 2020.


Works List
  1. The Earthcape to Meet You, 4K(Color), 1-channel video, stereo, 01:28:01, 2024
  2. Altar for Jizo and Miroku, video Installation(Monitor, projector), variable size, 2024
  3. After 2020, 4K(Color), 1channel video, stereo, 00:23:25, 2024
  4. Korean Dinner Party, oil and pencil on byeong-poong, variable size, 2024
  5. The Song of Jae-eun, video Installation(CRT monitor, UCC created by Jae-eun), variable size, 2024