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The Wavering Skiff · 1987
Byun Shi-Ji, The Wavering Skiff, 1987

100 Works/FŪDO 025

FŪDO 025 · 1987 · Middle Jeju · poem

The Wavering Skiff

흔들리는 조각배

Basic information

IdentifierFŪDO 025
TitleThe Wavering Skiff흔들리는 조각배
Date1987

Short commentary

Endurance means sharing the wavering of a distant existence and refusing to withdraw one's gaze.

Artwork text · poem

Text by Byun Joung Hoon

A sea the color of dried grass tilts, filling the whole surface.
Far to the left, a single skiff trembles like a dot.
But it is not only the boat that trembles.
The black waves tremble, the thatched house on the hill trembles,
and the hearts of the horse and the person tremble within the same wind.
The boat is on the sea, the person and the horse are on land.
They are in different places, yet within the same unease.
The person cannot hold the boat,
and the horse cannot stop that trembling.
There is nothing they can do.
So one thing remains to be done.
To watch.
The thatched house lowers itself,
the horse stands beside the person,
and the person never takes his eyes off the sea.
To endure is not to keep from trembling.
It is to bear, within one's own heart, the trembling of a being far away,
and in the end not to turn one's eyes away.
The wavering skiff is a small boat upon the sea,
and also a single life that wavers within a person.
The world is wide and the boat is small.
Yet because of that one small being,
everything on land quietly holds its breath.

Map of relations · Middle Jeju I, 1980–1987

Ieodo, dried-grass colour, storms, wavering horizons and the black sun.

Artwork text in 34 languages