송전탑 반대 주민과 대화하고 관객과 샛강 탐구…서울변방연극제 2일 개막

The 2nd day saw the opening of the 2026 Seoul Border Area Theater Festival, featuring 12 performances addressing conflicts and coexistence in the contemporary world. The performances ranged from fieldwork-style plays, process-sharing events, and lectures delivered through movement, to installation art.

One such fieldwork play, "Decomposition Theater: Digging, Feeding, Composting," was performed in the Han River Ecological Park with up to 15 audience members. The production, created by Korean-Humanist-Performance researcher Hyo-yeon Kim, involved finding flora, fungi, and bacteria in the park to explore their ecological significance.

Another performance, "Boulders Between Air Droplets, Bodies Woven into Trees/ Invasions-Their Own Joyful Pursuits," was a lecture-performance exploring the breathing of the Jeju volcanic island. Dancers and breath experts Soo-mi Lee and Mariam Yakob delved into the island's flora and ecology without relying on spoken language.

The festival also included visual art, such as "Universal Labor" by Japanese artist Otaka, which transformed the escalators of the Mureh Station in Tokyo into a visual tribute to the hardships faced by forced laborers during the Japanese occupation of Korea. The piece juxtaposed the struggles of Korean women with the artifacts of the era.