Goseong Unification Observatory and Showing North Korea from the South Korean Borderland: Goseong Unification Observatory’s exhibition from 1984-1991

Author : Sangwon Lee & Youngsoo Yook

Page : 95-140

Abstract

 Goseong Unification Observatory was established in 1984, based on President Chun Doo-hwan’s plan of mass tourism construction, and borderland tourism sites for inculcating the importance of anticommunism.The Goseong Unification Observatory achieved remarkable success by providing open access to the site and offering panoramic views of North Korean terrain, including the prominent Guemgang mountain. However, with the increasing influx of visitors to the borderland, North Korea began its propaganda targeting the public who came to witness the spectacle. As a countermeasure, the South Korean administration mandated mandatory anti-communism education before allowing entry into the CCZ(Civilian Controlled Zone). This measurement reveals the impregnated trait of the Observatory, where sole knowledge and values were permitted by the government.

 Unification Observatory distributed its knowledge systems through panel exhibition adorned of pictures and explanations accordingly. The compact exhibition room, strategically positioned along the route to the observation area, served as a window through which visitors could peer into North Korea. This exhibition site has changed three times between 1984 to 1991. The first period(1984-1987) of the exhibition portrayed Korean Nationalism, anti-communism, and the Chun administration’s fruit. Combining all together, the exhibition iconographically wrote the narrative of enemy North Korea and our auspicious nation, that has fought against the enemy for all time, persuading this government as the one who can guard and lead all of you under the president’s guidance. The second period(1987-1991) of exhibition started to focus more on the ‘North Korea’ itself, performing as a knowledge frontier. It emphasized the abnormality of North Korea, making an antithetical contrast to the normal South. It guided people’s gaze to North Korea as a subject that needed to be absorbed into the normal South. The third period(1991-) exhibition began to put distance from emotional anticommunism banners. It displayed the ‘everyday life of North Koreans’ which was newly started from North Korean Studies.

 However, we can find several dissent and discontent about the exhibition, and the tourism system of Observatory from newspaper articles. It suggests the possibility of future study of Transculturation, or Counter-Memory approach to the borderland tourism sites.

​<Key Word>

Goseong Unification Observatory, Korean Borderland Tourism, Imagined Community, Knowledge System, Image of North Korea.