38th Parallel
8 minute looping installation, 2008

38^th Parallel

"Filmed at the Demilitarized Zone on the border between North and South Korea, the work ‘38^th Parallel’ seeks to portray the particular reality of this contested site. It is a reality marked by an eerie sense of latency. Constantly alert, constantly inert, North and South face each other in a stalemate situation sealed by a cease-fire agreement 55 years ago. In her video, Davies operates in this void.

Working with the United Nations Armistice Commission and the United States Armed Forces in Korea, she shows how political reality manifests itself here, beyond representation, in the ways how space is structured and time is regimented in this militarized environment. Facing each other across the turnpike, for instance, border guards of both sides execute the silent ceremonies of authority proscribed by their military protocol. It’s choreography of empty gestures enacted on the stage of a deserted strip of land and bleak interrogation rooms.

Davies then shows the local epicentre of conflict of global proportions to be a non-place where power manifests itself in ghostly acts of decorum performed in suspended time."

Jan Verwoert, curator ‘Art Sheffield 08 Yes No Other.