Mirror Nation

The bracing third volume in Choi’s Korea and United States trilogy (after DMZ Colony) loosely centers on the Gwangju Uprising of May 1980, in which university students protesting martial law imposed by military dictator Chun Doo-Hwan were violently suppressed and up to 2,300 people were killed. Choi’s father, a photographer and cameraman, was present for the violence and chaos. At one point, Choi writes from his perspective, splicing the narrative with scans of his handwritten timelines. Choi quotes Walter Benjamin (“One of the great attractions of the travel scenes found in the Imperial Panorama was that it did not matter where you began the cycle”) as part of the spectacular mosaic of headlines and fragments she juxtaposes to place the events in a larger context of contemporaneous global neocolonial violence, including the 1980 Miami riots in response to the acquittal of four police officers who beat a Black man to death after a traffic stop. From Ethiopia to Israel, Nicaragua to Afghanistan, she ties headlines and fragments using the equal sign, which she refers to as “a syntax that enables multiple places and times to coexist simultaneously.” Choi skillfully illustrates the cyclical, endless nature of violence to more deeply understand her home, herself, and the world. (Apr.)