The healing effects for Gwangju Massacre trauma performed by 3 selected contemporary Korean artworks

This paper will examine the healing power of contemporary Korean art for the Gwangju Massacre trauma (1980), also widely known as The 5.18 Democratic Uprising, utilizing theories proposed by trauma scholars Cathy Caruth and Dori Laub. The conceptualization of trauma varies along with the evolution of trauma studies exceeding the field of psychiatry. From a humanities disciplinary approach, trauma refers to the belated response towards an overwhelming event in the form of uncontrolled, disruptive and repetitive experience (Caruth 1996, 11, 61-62, 91) when “the event not fully felt at the time of witnessing” (Crownshaw 2013, 167). In the face of historical collective traumatic events, the failure to the full experience of the event in time are summarized and reflected into two dimensions. First, the unspeakability in witnesses and survivors (Laub 1992, 78-80). Second, the sense of otherness (Laub 1992, 81-82), meaning the overwhelming senses of isolation and being misunderstood aroused under the complete disconnection from the outer world. Under the context of South Korea, Gwangju Massacre is undeniably a traumatic event owing to its overwhelming occurrence of 4000 civilian deaths, injuries and missing in total as estimated by scholar (Shin 2003, xvii, 54), resulting from the military crackdown of the provincial pro-democracy protest among students and civilians in the city of Gwangju in 1980. Witnesses and survivors of Gwangju Massacre are traumatized and trapped in the continued suffering of different forms (Lewis and Byun 2003, 54-55), echoing the common traumatized symptoms summarized by Caruth (1996, 4-5). In accordance, since the massacre, there have been diverse and continual societal efforts and later on governmental remedies in coping with the past wrongs and healing the wounds (Han 2005, 1021). This research is conducted with respect to Gwangju’s long- established relationship with art and the research gap that the capability of art in healing is normally discussed from a clinical perspective but rarely situated under a humanities framework to discuss its effectiveness in healing collective historical trauma. “The traumatized person, we might say, carries an impossible history within them, or they become themselves the symptom of a history that they cannot entirely possess” (Caruth 1991, 4), one should note that a traumatized person, from the humanities disciplinary perspective, does not limit to patient diagnosed of "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" (PTST) but anyone who fail to possess a certain traumatic history even it is not personally experienced. Hence, primarily dedicating to the real-time Gwangju survivors and bereaved families of the massacre, this essay will examine the recovery work performed by contemporary Korean art on collective Gwangju Massacre trauma under the two-dimensions recovery framework of “telling” and “being heard” with 3 chosen artworks, including Im Heungsoon’s video installation Good light, Good air, Noh Suntag’s photograph series Forgetting Machines (2006/2007) and Moon Seonhee’s sound installation Un/ asked – Voice (2021). Except for the sake of art, these three artworks created by Korean artists who all are not the direct subjects of the massacre carry memorial message and shoulder the record-keeping mission, and such features are particularly noticeable in the latter two works selected by The May 18 Memorial Foundation to exhibit in the 2020 and 2021 MaytoDay exhibitions respectively. Ultimately, this paper argues that the contemporary Korean artworks chosen for this research perform healing and recovery effects for Gwangju Massacre trauma, by artistically offering “telling” and “being heard”, a methodology suggested by Dori Laub’s psychoanalysis study on Holocaust witnesses and survivors (1992). Accordingly, “telling” refers to the action of telling the traumatic experiences (2018).

The traumatization of Gwangju Massacre trauma: unspeakability and the sense of Otherness

Trauma has a long history with psychiatry and trauma studies gained its place in humanities with the works and efforts of Cathy Caruth, Shoshana Felman and Dori Lau in the 1990s (Crownshaw 2013, 167). The matter of address is the primary focus of trauma studies in the humanities when the occurrence of trauma is attributed to “the delay or incompletion in knowing, or even in seeing” the overwhelming event (Caruth 1996, 5). Suffering and symptoms including repetitive behaviour, flashback, traumatic dream and hallucination are all perceived as “insistent return” (Caruth 1996, 5) aroused from the failure of consciously processing the event (Crownshaw 2013, 168). In order words, traumatization is not inherently prescribed to the overwhelming event but to its witnesses.

How does traumatization actually take place in witnesses and survivors of a historical traumatic event? This question is paramount to this research since the Gwangju Massacre is beyond personal but historical and collective event. Only by knowing exactly how the traumatization of Gwangju Massacre occurred, we are able to present the effective cure. Here, I foreground that the Gwangju Massacre trauma took place in witnesses and survivors on two dimensions. First, the unspeakability in witnesses and survivors (Laub 1992, 78-80), second, the sense of otherness (Laub 1992, 81-82), which were both the reflection of the incomprehensibility over the massacre.

Gwangju Massacre was initially an ordinary university student protest started in March demanding campus democratization and political reform (Lee 2009, 44). Indeed, there was a wave of democratic yearnings across different sectors of the society at the time, and it was particularly pervasive and enthusiastic among university students that by March 1980, universities nationwide organized student demonstrations calling for similar demands on campus democratization and political reform (Lee 2009, 45). Yet, from 18 May, Gwangju was bloodily taken over by the paratroopers’ ruthless and indiscriminate killing of demonstrators and innocent bystanders (Lee 2009, 45). Despite the ten-day uprising in which Gwangju citizens strenuously defended the city, the military reoccupied the city with the apparently excessive military force of special airborne commandos, eighteen tanks and helicopters, and 20,000 martial law troops (Lee 2009, 46). Gwangju Massacre was followed by the “purification campaign” in which “undesirable elements'' with no concrete standard were picked and sent to the military regime for “re-education” and subjected to forced labour and physical abuse under subhuman condition (Lee 2009, 46). Other than student activists, participants of The 5.18 Democratic Uprising and intellectuals, there were many innocent citizens randomly sent to the purification camp to meet the quota (Lee 2009, 46-47). From the peaceful demonstration among students to the citywide indiscriminate massacre, Gwangju citizens experienced a sudden and overwhelming occurrence that was hardly bearable and comprehensive “at the time of witnessing” (Crownshaw 2013, 167). Their incomprehensibility towards the Gwangju Massacre led to their traumatization on two respective dimensions, “unspeakability” and “the sense of otherness”.

First, I discuss unspeakability as the first dimension of the Gwangju Massacre trauma. Gwangju witnesses and survivors discussed their “unspeakability” towards the event in later interviews. “People can’t believe it is happening, and can’t imagine why” is one of the countless testimonies showing the Gwangju witnesses’ and survivors’ incomprehensibility of the massacre (Lewis 2002, 79). Incomprehensibility was inextricably mirrored in the unspeakability because “Those who witnessed the events found themselves utterly unprepared to comprehend what was happening and, later, to convey it to others” (Choi 2013, 13). In the testimony of Chong Kye-ryang, he states, “I was watching all of it, but couldn’t say anything [...]. Sounds came out of my mouth but I couldn’t speak at all” (Chŏng and Yu 2003, 91). Here, Chong’s statement on losing his speech right after the direct witness of a student ambushed and beaten by three soldiers best exemplifies the unspeakability from his incomprehensibility of the overwhelming violence and brutality. Chong Kye-ryang was not the only one. Kim Sun-ja, the wife of a survivor broke into tears when giving testimony over the massacre at the May Women’s Day Memorial Service in 1997, saying “I still can’t talk about this” (Lewis 2013, 56). Even it was nearly 20 years after the massacre, Kim at that time still could not completely gain her speech over what had happened. Recountings of witnesses and survivors pinpointed the dead silence surrounding the Gwangju Massacre in which one of them explicitly regarded the situation of no one talked about The 5.18 Democratic Uprising as “shellshock” (Choi 2013, 14). When there are no right words for one to construct a narrative over the historical trauma event, he or she may resort to silence but it is also silence triggers traumatization because the body has substituted language to tell the struggle (Laub 1992, 78). Here, Gwangju witnesses and survivors reported nightmares and continuous traumatic-related sufferings from their unspeakability (Choi 2013, 14), which is again the reflection of their incomprehensibility towards the massacre.

Next, I discuss sense of otherness as the second dimension of the trauma. Sense of otherness created another layer of Gwangju Massacre trauma, and it was closely tied to the incommunicability of the massacre back then. The voices and stories of witnesses and survivors could not reach the outside of Gwangju owing to the literal blackout of news and communication between the city and other provinces (Lee 2009, 46; Underwood 2003, 33). Moreover, there were regional discrimination in which the ruling military regime intentionally rationalized their violence by labelling The 5.18 Democratic Uprising as an insurrection by unruly communists, rioters and “impure elements” (Choi 2013, 13-15; Chŏng and Yu 2003, 169-170; Lee 2009, 53). That was a world created by the atrocious force to extinguish the very possibility of outsiders hearing the authentic account by rendering the traumatic experiences of witnesses and survivors completely incommunicable to one and other (Laub 1992, 82). Jin- gu, one interviewee of Choi’s research (2013) recalled his frustration when none of his friends at the Korea University believed his witnessing account of the massacre. During the interview, he mentions, “No one believed what I said about the Kwangju Uprising” (Choi 2013, 15). Suppressed room of discussion (Lee 2017, 12) and state-fabricated rumors and false discourses, such as the outrageous National Defense Ministry’s official report in 1985 (Lewis 2002, 77) which ridiculously praised the restraint of the soldiers (Chŏng and Yu 2003, 173), blocked Gwangju witnesses and survivors from being truly heard and understood by the outside of Gwangju in time (Lewis 2002; 12) and even years after the massacre (Choi 2013, 15). The failure of being heard resulted from the incommunicability of the event after all not only generated the sense of otherness (Laub 1992, 82) but also harmed the witnesses’ and survivors’ comprehensibility as it was particularly impossible to fully comprehend the massacre without external response and confirmation echoing the internal eyewitness (Choi 2013, 15). Im Choru, a Gwangju-born novelist later explicated the incommunicability of the massacre in his writing, he wrote, “The voices that tried to inform others of the truth were completely violated” (Sŏng 1989, 1348). Because of the incommunicability of the Gwangju Massacre created by the atrocious military regime and the isolation and discrimination that followed, Gwangju witnesses and survivors were traumatized in the sense of otherness for how it intensified one’s incomprehensibility towards the event.

Healing and contemporary Korean art

As a turning point of Korean modern history and democratization (Lee 2009, 48), the legacy of The 5.18 Democratic Uprising on democratization lives long so as the trauma of the Gwangju Massacre persists in returning to the witnesses and survivors (Lewis and Byun 2003, 54). Accordingly, healing has been a dominant theme in the city. “The five Kwangju principle” declared by numerous groups of the Gwangju movement in the mid-1980s, including making an inquiry into the truth, punishing those responsible for the massacre, correcting the wrongful convictions, compensating for the losses, and memorializing the spirits of Kwangju, were nationally accepted as the official guiding directions of resolving the state atrocities and mostly carried out by the state (Han 2005, 1022-1040) except for commemoration. The strong association between the Gwangju Massacre and art was exemplified by Minjung art movement (C. Shin 2020, 98) and the establishment of the Gwangju Biennale in the 1995. The latter, was intentionally designated to “compensate the city” (H. Shin 2020, 5,7,12) as an art-led urban regeneration project to revitalize the negative image of Gwangju that was still lingering even after the Kim Dae-jung government had officially acknowledged and praised Gwangju’s contribution for democracy through various means, such as the May 18 Special Law enacted in 1995 (H. Shin 2020, 12). This paper sees the capability of Korean art after 1990s, which is categorized as contemporary Korean art (Moon 2020, 465), in healing the traumatized Gwangju witnesses and survivors among all other unofficial channels, mediums and approaches of healing. I analyse three selected contemporary Korean artworks of different mediums for their capability of healing Gwangju Massacre trauma under the two-dimensions recovery framework proposed after Laub’s (1992) identification of “the imperatives to tell and to be heard” (Laub 1992, 78).

Telling: Im Heungsoon’s Good light, Good air and Noh Suntag’s Forgetting Machines

When unspeakability is core to the occurrence of Gwangju Massacre trauma, Im Heungsoon’s video installation Good light, Good air and Noh Suntag’s photograph series Forgetting Machines both offer an effective cure by enabling "telling" in the traumatized Gwangju people. Witnesses and survivors of a historical traumatic event "need to tell the story to survive" but they are not able to because the event "cannot be fully captured in thought, memory and speech." (Laub 1992, 78). As pinpointed by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, "A human being is above all a speaking being" (Evans 1996, 18), human suffers from their inborn desire to speak but as well finds the cure in speech. Through artistic means of video and sound installations and photographs, traumatized Gwangju people now have access to their voices once again to bind their wounds.

Figure 1 & 2 . Installation view of Good light, Good air. Image courtesy of the artist and The Page Gallery.

Figure 3 & 4. Screenshots of the channel videos of Good light, Good air. Image courtesy of The Page Gallery.

Im Heungsoon’s video installation Good light, Good air captures the testimonies and stories of the traumatized Gwangju people, in particular, the “telling” of Gwangju mothers who have lost their husbands and children in the Gwangju massacre. Im’s work exhibited in The Page Gallery in 2019/2020 (The Page Gallery, 2021) visualizes the “mirror” between Gwangju and Buenos Aires for their very similar history of the massacre under military rule in the 1970s and 80s (Im 2021) by playing the channel videos of the two respective places side-by-side on two individual screens (S. J. Lee 2021, 609). Im Heung-soon has been listening to the voices and valuing the testimonies of victims who are not standing in the frontline of the history in his previous works (S. J. Lee 2021, 581). This time, Gwangju mothers and Buenos Aires mothers who have lost their children in Gwangju Massacre (1980s) and Dirty War (1976-1983) respectively are the central subjects of Good light, Good air (Im 2021). These mothers, in the same manner, have been protesting for truth and justice until today, and Im’s work allows them to tell their inner stories, thoughts and pain that were rarely voiced out to the public directly (S. J. Lee 2021, 580, 610; Im 2021). “Telling” for the bereaved mothers is never easy but truly arduous, as they have been constantly obstructed by their long-existed unspeakability aroused from the overwhelming nature of the massacres. Yet, Im assists the process of “telling” artistically by intersecting the sharing and testimonies from the Gwangju mothers and the Buenos Aires mothers. For examples, when the Gwangju mothers were choked with sobs and tears, Buenos Aires mothers’ voices were edited to fill the void; when the Gwangju mothers were marching on the street singing the protest song 임을 위한 행진곡 Marching for Our Beloved, one Buenos Aires mother was simultaneously explaining why they have been endlessly silent protesting at the Plaza de Mayo for 42 years on the other screen. Subsequently, a complete audiovisual narrative over the Gwangju Massacre is constructed through Good light, Good air. Different from the mere artistic representation of the Gwangju Massacre, which serves the purpose of truth-telling and can be conventionally found films since the 1990s (S. C. Lee 2021, 222), Good light, Good air possesses healing effect for how it assists the Gwangju survivors to overcome their aporia and utterance towards the traumatic memories and form audiovisual evidence from their first-person telling of the massacre and its aftermath (J. Kim 2021, 728, 730). Noted that this essay primarily highlights the healing effects of Im’s Good light, Good air on the bereaved mothers of the Gwangju Massacre, his work indeed operates on the bereaved mothers of Buenos Aires likewise.

Figure 5. Noh Suntag, Forgetting Machine I #001, Hwang Hogeol, 2006. Archive pigment print, 100 x 140 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

Figure 6. Noh Suntag, Forgetting Machine I #007, Park Inbae, 2006. Archive pigment print, 100 x 140 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.

Noh Suntag, a Korean artist born in 1971, keeps photographic records of the worn-out funerary photo-portraits of the victims at the old cemetery in his work Forgetting Machines (2006/2007). Stories that needed to be told do not limit to the happening of the massacre but also its aftermath. Initially commissioned by The May 18 Memorial Foundation (Kim, 2011), funerary photo-portraits taken by Noh in front of the tombs belong to victims killed by the soldiers during the massacre (MaytoDay 2021c). “오월에 죽은 이들은 자신의 삶과 죽음을 얼굴로 전달해 줄 따름이다” [Those who died in May convey their lives and deaths with their faces] (Noh 2021), as concluded by Noh in his production note, Forgetting Machines first enables the “telling” of the killing in the massacre. Having a photo-portrait in front of the grave is a very rare practice to Koreans but such practice was adopted to identify the victims when hundreds of Gwangju citizens were killed ruthlessly by the military in just ten days (Kim 2011), once again signifying the unbearable brutality of the massacre. Yet, the “telling” offered by Noh’s work does not limited to the deceased victims but also the living bereaved families continuously suffering from the Gwangju Massacre trauma. Here, Noh’s Forgetting Machines performs recovery work by enabling the bereaved families to artistically “tell” their discontent towards the delay of official apologies from those involved in the massacre and suppression (Kim 2011).

When compared with the well-framed weather-proof funeral portraits in the new cemetery, Noh’s damaged photo-portraits of the old Mangwol-dong Cemetery were factual remarks of some bereaved families’ decline to the government’s arrangement of relocating the victims to the well-maintained new cemetery from the old cemetery because no official apology has been issued (Kim 2011; MaytoDay 2021c). Gwangju survivors and the bereaved have been waiting for a sincere and direct apology from the former president Chun Doo-hwan, who is considered accountable for the order of shooting civilians in the massacre, but it is now forever impossible because Chun passed away in November 2021 without issuing any apology over his misdeeds in the Gwangju Massacre (J. Chŏng 2021). 11 Fifth Republic victim groups including May 18 Seoul Commemoration Association and 삼청교육대 전국피해자연합회 [Samchung Re-education Camp Nationwide Victim Union] etc., gathered in front of Chun Doo-hwan’s funeral hall to condemn Chun of not issuing apology or even something similar in the past 41 years and urged Chun’s bereaved family to kneel down and apologize now (Yi 2021). Following Chun’s death, Lee Soon-ja, the widow of Chun did offer “deep” apology to “people who suffered pains and scars during her husband’s time in office” (The Guardian 2021). However, her apology was immediately clarified by Chun’s former secretary Min Chung-ki on the same day that “(이순자씨가) 5·18 에 관해 말씀하신 게 아니다” [Lee Soo-ja was not speaking on behalf on 5.18] (Han 2021), specifying that the apology has nothing to do with the Gwangju Massacre.

These bereaved families’ rejection of the new cemetery, known as the May 18th National Cemetery, is exactly the reflection of their longingness for an official apology as well as their anger at the responsible parties (Kim 2011). However, rarely did or can the bereaved families speak of their stories and discontent under the “forgetting” engineered by the state in the memorialization and commemoration process, which aim at justifying the necessity of death in democratization and covering up the past wrongs. (Han 2005, 1037, 1039-40; Noh, 2021). The “shift of focus” attributable to the political-oriented visits of the politicians beyond merely paying respect and remembrance, from another dimension, further worsens the “forgetting” of the old cemetery and makes the bereaved families unspeakable of their stories and anger.

Figure 6 & 7. Photos of the bereaved mothers crying in front of the graves of their sons at the Unjeong-dong May 18th National Cemetery after Chun Doo-hwan’s death in November. Images courtesy of the Yŏnhamnyusŭ TV and The FACT.

Along with the official recognition of May 18 as a National Commemoration Day in 1997 (Yea 2002, 1559), the hidden agenda of the construction of the new cemetery has been doubted to be political rather than truly serving the wounded Gwangju citizens (Yea 2002, 1560, 1569). There have been criticisms and contention that the new cemetery downplays or even distorts the ‘real’ democratic spirit of the uprising (Yea 2002, 1563, 1569). Yet, it is undeniable that the shabby old cemetery is slowly being obliviated by the public and replaced by the modern and well-maintained new cemetery (Kim 2011; Yea 2002, 1566), perhaps suggesting why only the bereaved families of the new cemetery were reported in news immediately after Chun’s death (G. Kim 2021; Pak 2021). Pathetically but precisely speaking, even the old cemetery now is not truly serving the deceased victims and the bereaved families because the politicians have already turned the old cemetery into a “political arena” competing for spotlights and supports. Chi Byŏng-gŭn, the professor from the Department of Political Science & Diplomacy of Choson University pointed out that a politician’s visit to the old cemetery is a demonstration of one’s non-conservative political stance, and it is most saliently reflected by the action of stepping on the “전두환 비석” [“Chun Doo-hwan stele”] (D. Chŏng 2021a). For instance, Lee Jae-myung, one of the presidential candidates visited the old Mangwol-dong Cemetery in October 2021 and when he stepped on the “Chun Doo-hwan stele”, he particularly asked “윤석열 후보도 여기 왔었느냐?” [Was candidate Yoon Seok-youl here too?] in front of the press (D. Chŏng 2021a). When the focus of the old cemetery has been shifted to whether a politician has stepped on the “Chun Doo-hwan stele”, it explains why there are only very little news coverage on the deceased victims and the bereaved families in the past years, who are supposed to be the central subjects of the old cemetery, but never- ending news articles reporting which politicians and of course which candidates of the upcoming presidential election have stepped on the stele (D. Chŏng 2021a) as if it was a competition. Eventually, according to Kuk Sŭng-jin, the officer of the May 18th National Cemetery, more and more ordinary citizens visit the old cemetery to look for the “stele” after it has become a hot topic these days (D. Chŏng 2021b), once again reinforcing the fact that the politicians have shifted away the focus of visiting the old cemetery from paying respect and remembrance to the deceased victims of the massacre.

Hence, the gradual oblivion of the public over the old cemetery in general together with the shift of focus attributable to the politicians who carry heavy political intentions in their visits to the old cemetery are possible of rendering the bereaved families of the old cemetery unspeakable of their frustration in not receiving official apology and their discontent of their dead not being equally treated as those buried in the new cemetery when the world has already left them behind. In this sense, Noh’s Forgetting Machines artistically offers a platform to these bereaved families, allowing a complete “telling” of their stories and struggles in the aftermath of the massacre and the state’s insincere handling, which is pivotal to the healing of their Gwangju Massacre trauma even it is operated indirectly.

Being heard: Moon Seonhee’s Un/ asked – Voice

Incommunicability of the event traumatizes the witnesses, survivors and the bereaved for the sense of otherness and isolation it generates and the incomprehensibility it worsens. Moon Seonhee’s Un/ asked – Voice exhibited in the Between the Seen and the Spoken, an exhibition dedicated to The May 18th Democratic Uprising (Maytoday 2021b), eradicates the sense of otherness in the traumatized children survivors by allowing their testimonies to "be heard", which is a form of validation of their traumatic experiences indispensable to the healing process.

Figure 7. Installation view of Un/ asked - Voice. Image courtesy of Gwangju Biennale Foundation.

Moon’s Un/ asked – Voice is an immersive sound installation exhibited at the Former Armed Forces’ Hospital, April this year for the exhibition Between the Seen and the Spoken organized under MaytoDay, a durational curatorial project dedicated to the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Gwangju Massacre (MaytoDay 2020). Moon’s work successfully performs recovery work for the children survivors of the Gwangju Massacre on the “being heard” dimension. Testimonies of 80 adults, who experienced the massacre as children, are now re-enacted by children living in Gwangju today for audiences to hear (MaytoDay 2021a). The setting of Moon’s interactive installation, in which the recorded testimonies can only be heard after walking up to the top of the incline, resembles the sense of otherness that once existed in these children survivors. The incline visualizes how distanced and isolated were the eyewitnesses and testimonies of the child survivors back then. One of the audio of the installation states, “I had nightmares every night. But I was too young and no one talked to me or hear me about what was happening” (Choi 2013, 13; MaytoDay 2021a). The recalling of children survivors demonstrates how the massacre was particularly incommunicable to these child survivors. Their eyewitnesses and testimonies were often regarded unqualified or illegitimate to “be heard” because they were too young and “not the central subjects of the uprising” at the very first place (MaytoDay 2021a), not to mention the general wall-closing political atmosphere eliminating any possibility of “being heard” to the Gwangju witnesses and survivors (Sŏng 1989, 1348). The sense of otherness was found in the Gwangju citizen, but it was the strongest among the children survivors as any conversation over the massacre was entirely unavailable to them, which was highly relevant to their traumatization.

Here, the design of re-enacting the testimonies through the innocent voices of children first grants vitality to the traumatic accounts of the 80 now-middle-aged adults survivors. When the children living in Gwangju today get involved in re-enacting the once incommunicable testimonies of these child survivors, it is even a symbolic connection between these 1980’s heavily wounded Gwangju citizens and the “future” of the city. Furthermore, beyond allowing the testimonies of the 80 child survivors to be heard by visitors of the exhibition Between the Seen and the Spoken, Moon’s installation more importantly highlights that active listening is what these survivors are truly looking for. By requiring visitors to lean closely towards the chair located at the top of the incline in order to clearly hear the voices of the children, only those who take such strenuous efforts can hear the testimonies of the 80 child survivors because they show attitude and determination sincere enough of taking the traumatic memories of these child survivors to the hearts instead of disregarding them as if in the past.

Therefore, the 80 now-middle-aged adults survivors can be healed through Moon’s work because Gwangju Massacre is no longer incommunicable to these child survivors when their testimonies are fully heard and embraced by the outside today, ranging from the next generation participating in the recording to the visitors who paid a visit to the exhibition.

Conclusion

This paper argues the potential of healing and recovery in contemporary Korean art with three chosen artworks and a two-dimensions recovery framework proposed after Laub’s finding (1992). The matrix of traumatization is explained in detail, from the incomprehensibility of the overwhelming event, which is the core cause of trauma, to the unspeakability of the event and the sense of otherness where trauma is actually embodied through. Such theoretical discussion echoes the actual traumatization in Gwangju witnesses, survivors and bereaved. In accordance with the desperate need of recovering from the Gwangju Massacre trauma, three selected contemporary Korean artworks are put under the “trauma recovery” telescope and proved their capability of healing the traumatized Gwangju through the activation of “telling” and “being heard.” In order words, whenever a contemporary Korean artwork satisfies “telling” or “being heard” of the traumatized Gwangju people, it is thus performing recovery and healing effects for the Gwangju Massacre trauma as the artwork pulls them away from the unspeakability of the massacre and the sense of otherness. This finding can be utilized as the selection criteria of artwork for future curatorial project dedicated to the Gwangju Massacre. Notwithstanding, one should note that a single piece of contemporary Korean artwork is not inclusive in healing all Gwangju traumatized population, even it fulfills the requirement of “telling” or “being heard”, it rather depends on which specific cluster it serves. Ultimately, the research finds that contemporary Korean artworks chosen for this research perform healing and recovery effects for Gwangju Massacre trauma by artistically enabling “telling” and “be heard” through artworks. This finding offers precisive and systematic insights into the approach of healing the wounded Gwangju people with art, which has been a long-term endeavour of the state and other art and culture organizations such as May 18 Democratic Uprising Archive and Gwangju Biennale (H. Shin 2020, 5).

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Artworks cited: Im, Heungsoon, Good Light, Good Air, video installation. 2018. Seoul: The Page Gallery.

Moon, Seonhee, Un/asked - Voice, plant and sound installation. 2021. Gwangju: MaytoDay.

Noh, Suntag. “Manggakkigye I” [Forgetting Machines I]. 2006/2007. Digital photograph. Accessed October 9, 2021. http://suntag.net/archives/dt_gallery/망각기계

Websites cited: “Between the Seen and the Spoken.” MaytoDay. Accessed October 10, 2021b. http://maytoday.org/en/exhibition/2021-gwangju/

“Ghost Guide.” The Page Gallery. Accessed November 14, 2021. http://www.thepage- gallery.com/exhibitions/detail/105/GHOST-GUIDE-

Im, Heungsoon. “Good Light, Good Air.” IM Heung-soon. Accessed November 13, 2021. http://imheungsoon.com/good-light-good-air/.

“MaytoDay”. MaytoDay, June 2, 2020. http://maytoday.org/en/maytoday/

Noh, Suntag. “Manggakkigye I” [Forgetting Machines I]. NOH SUNTAG. Accessed October 9, 2021. http://suntag.net/archives/dt_gallery/망각기계

“Suntag Noh.” MaytoDay. Accessed November 11, 2021c. http://maytoday.org/en/project/suntag-noh/