Kim Sun-deok
100x100 cm
Archival digital print on paper
100x100 cm
Archival digital print on paper
Yajima Tsukasa Gwangju, South Korea
2005Transcription under the portrait
Audio transcription
Oh, we’ve got to have fun while we can.
August fifteenth was our land’s liberation day
Every house flew the flag; on every street people shouting “ten thousand years, hooray!
Hooray, hooray! Hooray for independence, our land is free!
Don’t trust the Americans or be suckered by the Soviets;
Hasten the reunion of our North and South, build up our land— I want to live for a trillion years!”
“I want to live for a trillion years!”
Oh, we’ve got to have fun while we can.
On a motionless night, while everyone else is asleep, only I sit up alone.
Things that have happened in the past spread out before me, and today I think of my grief.
A giant thing higher than the mountains; beyond the waters, a great sea.
“You didn’t understand any of that, did you…!?!”
Extract from Ballad of the Traveling Entertainer