When “Four Major River Project” started as a Korean style new deal, the changing scenery was such a shock for me in 2010. Giant banks were built along the rivers and they walled the nature. and dump cars carried dredged soil and it piled up on the field every day. Whenever it had gotten the bigger the piled soil was, the nature lost its own shape and disappeared. Instead, greediness and egoism took the place of the rivers. This project was, ironically, called as “Growth with Green.” This paradoxical uncomfortable wording made me to question the legitimacy of other massive construction project. Korean society justified its perspective to see its mother earth, which is that people can treat her as a tool for economic development. Therefore, contracting industry abnormally comprises a large portion of Korean economy. To keep working this industry, people deal with the environment for mass production. Rivers are just one of the commodity. The work “Hanguk Construction” shows the scenery of nature that is exploited by people to satisfy their desire in capitalistic society. Korean society dispense with meaningful discussions about the relationship between human being and the nature, and incomparable values that our mother nature owns. This work captured this condition.
