FROM LOUISE ERDRICH:
Instead of a wall, imagine an international border marked by a visionary work of art. Imagine strolling the High Line, except that this walkway winds through the Korean Demilitarized Zone, one of the richest and most diverse ecosystems left in this broken world. Dreaming of Earth, a project proposed originally by South Korean artist Jae-Eun Choi, would be a contemplative passage floating above what for 65 years has been a minefield. This raised path would knit a healing seam between two of our globe’s most disparate philosophies.
I first read about Dreaming of Earth in a Los Angeles Times article ‘Art of Unity’ by Alan Weisman, author of the internationally bestselling book, The World Without Us. After reading about how this bridge of peace would meander through ‘an accidental refuge to scores of imperiled plants and animals – including orchids, leopard cats, Eurasian otters, and nearly vanished Amur goral, and learning that Choi’s site includes a hot spring where ‘more than half the world’s (endangered) red-crowned cranes winter’, I couldn’t stop thinking about the project, and became convinced that it must become a reality.
Jae-Eun Choi has said that ‘people are integrated into nature and are creatures of eternal change’. She is known for her powerful works of nature dominated art – trees shooting from a steel tower, a church roofed by a bamboo forest, the expo pavilion she made from 40,000 plastic bottles that she recycled herself. First introduced at the 2016 Venice Bienale, Dreaming of Earth was joined by an extraordinary team of architects and artists. Choi, along with Pritzker Prize laureate Shigeru Ban, presented a scale model of the proposed path that incorporated open air ‘Jung Ja’ meditation pavilions and artist designed viewing stations. Choi’s viewing station would be an ethereal woven vase enclosing a spiral staircase that would culminate in a glorious perch. Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, South Korean artists Lee Ufan and Lee Bul, and Mumbai architect Bijoy Jain are among other contributors. Scientist Jaeseung Jeong proposes knowledge and seed banks housed in an abandoned military invasion tunnel. Plans are underway for North Korean artists to join. Every individual effort makes this world-altering project more distinctly feasible.
As writers, my daughter Pallas and I are collecting the signatures of an ever-increasing number of impassioned supporters and will present this letter to the governments of both Koreas and to every delegation to the United Nations.
So why would I, so grounded in my home states, North Dakota and Minnesota, become involved in a project halfway around the earth, in a place I’ve never even visited?
Here’s the reason. I grew up in North Dakota, the Peace Garden State. It is the motto stamped on our license plates. The International Peace Garden, marking our border with Canada, lies near my home reservation, Turtle Mountain. I have been to there many times to visit my favorite feature, a Floral Clock designed differently every year. Described as existing ‘at the heart of Turtle Island of North America,’ The Peace Garden was constructed shortly after World War 1, in the belief that the war to end all wars had just occurred. This year marks the 85th year that this garden has celebrated cross border friendship. Ever changing flowerbeds and water gardens, summer camps, wildlife and picnic areas, distinguish a border devoted to human enjoyment. A meditation chapel incorporates both sides of the border. The interior of the chapel is lined with stone and engraved with statements about peace, like this one by P.G. Hamerton, ‘the only hope of preserving what is best lies in the practice of an immense charity. A wide tolerance. A sincere respect for opinions that are not ours.’
A border that speaks tolerance stands an ideal, and also a reproach to the cruelty of our administration, the repudiation of our national values, the insults to our best international allies, and the idea of a monolithic wall. At the Peace Garden, the border with Canada is a place where people share Old Dutch potato chips, not a place where families are wrenched apart and asylum seekers humiliated. The existence of the Peace Garden gives me hope for Dreaming of Earth. An international artistic expression of collective will, Dreaming of Earth, like a great cathedral, transcends our time and speaks to the future. There is no reason why we can’t bring to life this work of sanity, connection, and healing.