SPIRIT OF THE NATION

Reading the signs and placards dotted around the site and visiting the exhibits makes you realise that this is a country that struggled to have a chance to exist, and from all over the cemetery you can see the city that capitalised on that chance, so you can imagine visitors looking back to the city that they live in and contemplating that relationship.

Towards the western slopes - photo by TD

The cemetery is clean, and well tended, much like the rest of the city, but seems to attract fewer people than perhaps it should. Admittedly there were walkers and berry-pickers but again less than might be expected, were I in a park or an ordinary hillside. 

The exhibits were empty and when asked whether they had many visitors, a custodian replied 'No, not many, mostly students' (referring to the school trips that seem to frequent these places). This didn't really make sense. The site had so many qualities to incite habitation by living Koreans, it was as if an equation had been written, but somehow it did not equal 'people'.

Hill walks - photo by TD

Yet perhaps this is understandable. The cemetery is cut off in so many ways from the living Seoul physically; highway, valley, river Han - that it would be rational for it to be cut off mentally as well.

Towards the eastern slopes - photo by TD

80% of those interred here, died during the Korean war. Fifty years have passed since the end of the Korean war and there are now very few visitors to the graves of the war dead, giving the place a forlorn feeling. To bring back some life to this place and to ensure that those who sacrificed their lives for our country can rest in peace and be remembered, the Cemetery is staging the One Flower, One Citizen campaign. The Seoul National Cemetery Management Team

Perhaps the forlornness is due to the fact that few contemporary Koreans have immediate familial connections to the National Cemetery and could be solved by siting more internments there. A visit to an active contemporary site might confirm this. One option for 6 FEET UP could be to provide that proposal - a scheme to reinvigorate Seoul National Cemetery by linking modern memorial to historical.

I suspect the issue is a little more complicated, and believe additionally that a cemetery that is already removed from its community cannot be reattached by simply constructing a new memorial nearby with stronger bonds. If Seoul National Cemetery proves to be the most appropriate option then I will have to resolve those beliefs within the project.

Memorial exhibit - photo by TD

Walk a few metres into the room above, the first in the memorial exhibit and a ceremonial fanfare plays loudly, followed by speech, no doubt regaling those present tales of bravery and valour. I'm sure the effect is quite rousing when the room is full of its irregular school visits, but alone and English, it was rather eerie and quite sad.

Koreans seem to be a practical people. It turns out that if an escalator is left unused for a period of time it will stop until someone approaches. Though applaudable it is rather sad that I discovered this at rush hour at the new subway station for the National Cemetery.