Photographer Yisak Choi

In Search of Paradise for the Small and Poor

 

Shim Sang-yong (Ph.D. Art History / Dongduk Women’s University)

 

 

Forged Paradise, False Peace

 

Here there are two paradises. One is real, and the other is an image. The former is connected to the truth. The latter is a false paradise suggested by this civilization. Yisak Choi says true paradise is like one’s “mother’s womb.” It is a place isolated from all outer seductions and threats, a safe and peaceful place filled with hope.

In the theme park, people temporarily consume a pseudo-utopia in the architected experiences, artificially shaped gardens and colorful rides that add amusement to their weekend outing. The merry-go-round in the theme park creates the illusion that we have escaped once and for all from the dry and desolate daily routine. This uncontaminated, fairytale-like world gives the impression of a dramatic contrast with the actual world, overridden by irrationality.

Consider the world, filled with evil and greed. How terrible it is! War, torture, sexual violence, racism, bipolarization of rich and poor, plunder, corruption… The list goes on without end. Why? The outside world is a reflection of the inner world. The irrationalities of the world are the external projections of humans’ irrational insides. The guilty world is merely an intimate extension of the guiltiness of beings. A passage from Solomon’s Book of Ecclesiastes speaks of this fact: “…The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.” Let us recall what Anselm of Canterbury (1033~1109) said in his book Why God Became Man, in response to the questions of his student Boso. “You have not yet considered how grave sin is.”

The guiltiness of being, however, tirelessly camouflages itself. The deficiency deeply rooted in existence is not easily confessed. The senses are altered and used as techniques to cover the deeply rooted absence. The contemporary (culture) is a peculiar type of such alteration. It is from this alteration that the draft of the second paradise is drawn. Hence, the blueprint of the artificial paradise, structuralized with ominous motley colors and manipulated excitement, is printed. The Grim Reaper-the skeleton wearing a long cape and holding a giant scythe to reap death-has been banished from this blueprint. The fear of death, “the fear of what may come after death, the fear of the unknown land, from which no man has ever returned” (Shakespeare), is effectively hidden as if it never existed in the first place.

Choi sees the fabricated paradise in the theme park. This is a place showing obvious traces of a hasty attempt to erase the traces of death and the records of evil. A contrived sense of happiness is positioned here and there. Still the sweetness must have come from an original memory-from something deep inside the being, which drove people endlessly to make substitutes. Without an original, how would an imitation be possible? The lame logic of some claims that a copy is possible without the original; however, this is not true.

People know the facts to a certain extent. In the theme park, all that is possible is the poor excuse for comfort that lasts for just a moment. Moreover, one must pay the expensive fee. “What cannot continue forever, will eventually stop.” These are the words of economist Herbert Stein. The truth cannot be covered up forever, and all lies function only up to their given expiration date. When the cool paint peels off, rusty water will ooze out. The once refined structures will collapse, and the heightened senses will evaporate without a trace. The brilliance of the theme park is the other side of poverty. Such happiness is another name for the guide who stands us in front of inescapable unhappiness. While taking a walk in the well-arranged artificial garden, people will tilt their heads, wondering why their hearts are attracted to a page in Confessions by St. Augustine (354~430). That page contains the following passage:

 

“Our hearts are restless till they find rest in you.”

 

 

Paradise Beginning at the Place of Failure

 

Within the boundary of the temporary paradise-the theme park-there is nothing sustainable. The kaleidescopic colors are nothing but a sloppy disguise for the pitiful absence of paradise. The ‘Artificial Paradise’ will end as a declaration of paradise‘s absence. If so, where is paradise? Does it exist? Young Choi says “yes.” According to him, heaven is not far away, but beside the failed paradise. “One who has fallen down on the ground must push against that ground to stand back up.” This quote is from a Buddhist sermon by Jinul, a venerable priest of the Koryo Dynasty. Paradise exists as a neighbor to the fake paradise.

We know intuitively that paradise has nothing to do with the things we desire. Paradise will have nothing in common with the things admired by this civilization. Rather than being something grandiose, it will be closer to ‘something that is nothing.’ It is a gateway that cannot be passed through unless you are like a child, in complete denial of adults’ knowledge system, having stepped down from the position of arrogance or “pretending to be wise”; it is something close to heartsease, which Amy Carmichael used as a metaphor.

 

“The plant called heartsease often grows where we should not expect to find it. And it says, after these sad days have passed you will look back and wonder how you were carried through. … And this is no fantasy. It shall be so.”

 

Choi encounters paradise; Carmichael saw heartsease in corners no one had paid attention to. These are the neglected corners of the theme park, not the least bit fancy; these are the other side of the decorated, the marginal and the strange. Choi's photographs say that the true fragments of paradise are at the opposite end from the paradise embellished with gold and marble, and in the barren spaces. This paradise is shabby, and gladly poor. Here there is neither an atmosphere of banquet and feast, nor a place for the cheering crowd. The atmosphere is still, as if a sedative has been administered. The emotional lines quietly follow the moderations of the minimal composition, and the pastel tones.

Paradise does not reveal itself, and in the same way, truth does not defend itself. There is no need to do so. Let us remember, it is the world benefiting from lies that frequently holds banquets, prefers sensual stimulation, and praises intellectual arrogance. Paradise exists, but it is hidden. It reveals itself only to those who seek it. Once H. R. Rookmaaker described this era as an age that “predicates the meaningful as meaningless.” The world of Young Choi goes in the opposite direction. It is an attempt to excavate meaning from what has been known to be meaningless.

Paradise, however, has not yet been revealed. It is a completion on its way. Its whole is still wrapped in a veil. That is why heaven still calls for imagination. There is a lack of concreteness, and a necessity for the strategical absence of information. It is in this strategical fringe of reality, at the edge of the theme park, in an anonymous corner, that Choi’s story of paradise begins. It seems as if pieces of a map are awakening us to the existence of paradise. Their mission is not to let us know everything, but to encourage our journey in search of paradise. In an age dominated by the desire of the gaze, this could be an unsatisfactory method. But an age in which people believe that everything can be confirmed with their eyes is hell. The absence of secrets is the absence of everything, and the end of mystery is the end of many things in life. Let us remember the warning of Regis Debray, that the era of video will be the graveyard of imagination. By revealing only part of the story, Choi avoids the trap of arrogance. “… Saying that I am holding onto the truth, that I notice justice, that I can make unwavering judgments and am prepared for perfection … arrogance. … Have mercy on us.”

 

Perhaps paradise is something like the Dohnavur Fellowship, founded by Ms. Carmichael to save Indian girls from being sold as sex toys. But when presented with the question about paradise, she asks us to look at the heartsease blooming by the road. She tells us to listen to the story of a flower that no one looks at twice, but that manages to overcome its smallness to finally achieve completion. Those who search for paradise with all their hearts know the facts to a certain extent. Paradise begins to open where the bitter failure of paradise is perceived. If we make strenuous efforts to find it, it will come to us first.

 

Yisak Choi’s world speaks about heaven and its camouflage, truth, and falsehood posing as truth. It asks us what our paradise is. Of course, this is a question based on the expectation that we will listen more carefully to the sounds of the original, coming from within.