Yeosu, Beginning, Middle and the End

Live broadcast performance commemorating the 8th anniversary of the disaster, 2015

On February 11, 2015, at 4:16 a.m. in the morning of the 8th anniversary of the Yeosu Foreigner Shelter Fire Disaster, a performance without an audience was held at a broadcasting studio.

official sponsorship by the Ustream Korea 

Copyright of image Ⓒ Park Kyong Ju

Date: At 4:16 am/7:30 pm on February 11th (Wed), 2015 (Twice a day)  

Duration: 120 minutesLocation: Real time broadcasting via Ustream Korea 

Production: Salad Thater (www.salad.or.kr)

Producer: Park Kyong Ju

\Writer & Director: Park Kyong Ju (www.parkkyongju.com)

Choreography: Eunju Park, Anima Singh

Music: Wolfgang in der Wiesche

Media Diretor: Sungsuk Suk

Stage & Costume Design: Park Kyong Ju

Light Director: Jaesung Lee

Broadcast Director: Taeckwan Nam

Cast:  Byungsun Rue, Inyong Son, Eunju Park, Anima Singh, Donguk Lee, Jinmun Kim, Hyunyong Shin, Jihea Yoo, Park Kyong Ju

Translation: Hayan Jeon, Gewha Kim

Support: Ustream Korea, AGI Sociaty, TB1 Media

* Description: The Theatre covers the story after the fire in Yeosu Foreigners’ Detention Center to the time when bereaved families and injured persons finished negotiation about compensation and left. We ask the audience about the truth of the fire incident by mixing testimony and arguments of several people. However, we never tell a specific truth but we make the audience imagine a direction of the truth and how it looks like. 


* Features of the Work: The performance is given on a broadcasting studio without the audience and broadcasted real time online via cameras and the broadcasting system installed in the studio. The audience are individual web users beyond cameras. Documentary images that Park Kyong Ju shot in Yeosu Seongsim Hospital when the fire occurred are edited real time to be aired with a half dramatic play for the audience. The studio reborn with simple white cubes without a specific stage setting well demonstrates memories and episodes of the tragedy occurring eight years ago.   * Yeosu Story

On February 11, 2007 at 4 in the morning a fire broke out in cell 304 of Yeosu Foreigners’ Detention Center.(The 3rd floor detained male migrant workers at the time of fire) A total of 9 out of 55 detained migrant workers suffocated and died in toxic fumes from the urethanes mats: Sung-Nam Kim (Chinese, ethnic Korean), Yelchin (Uzbekinstan), Kwangseok Kim (Chinese, ethnic Korean), Nubo (Chinese, Han Chinese), Taebok Lee (Chinese, ethnic Korean), Seonhee Jin (Chinese, Han Chinese), Jeokwo Jang (Chinese, Han Chinese), Kwanchoong Son (Chinese, Han Chinese), and Shiachoon Lee (Chinese, Han Chinese).    Haepa Whang (Chinese, Han Chinese) among the seriously injured also died while treated in the intensive care unit. A total of 10 migrants died of the fire at the Yeosu Foreigners’ Detention Center. Some of the survivals of the fire got compensation while others didn’t. Most of them still suffer from aftereffects of the fire and do not receive due attention from the world.

Photos by Documentary Photography Team (Park Dong-Myeong, Go Sang Suk) Copyright of all images Ⓒ Park Kyong Ju