ikkibawiKrrr <Boundaries>, 2024 18 videos

For those of us who don't live by the sea, the ocean feels like a wide horizon, an endless world. A beautiful landscape or an encounter with nature, with a cool breeze and waves rolling in endlessly…

But when you get to know the sea, when you encounter the sea as a site for everyday life, you realize the ocean has many boundaries. In our meetings with Jeju Island’s haenyeo or visits to sea farms in Korea’s southern regions, we saw that the littoral fishing grounds are divided by village boundaries and operated in accordance with established rules.

As the site of one’s livelihood, the sea is linked to the fishermen's economy and is a place where production and labor move smoothly. It is intertwined with the institutions of the fishing community or fisheries cooperative, including the rules for communal production in the village, and on a larger scale, with state-operated institutions. So rather than being a romantic or only ecological landscape, the littoral is a place where individual economic production is made possible and connected to life on the coast through a dense set of rules and communal decision-making. We believe that everyday life in the littoral regions is situated within institutions but also functions outside of these frameworks. Therefore, how communities relate to the resources of the littoral affects the ecology of this region.

Our visits to the littoral were primarily for observing and exploring. After visiting the sea farms and returning to the city, we are reminded of the littoral as we read various research articles and materials. We encountered the sea by walking through reclaimed land, crossing bridges on islands, and taking boat rides. We encountered laver, sea mustard, and tot (fusiformis) growing on ropes, as well as many unnameable seaweeds floating in the water.

The various video clips here were largely shot at fish farms. The underwater solar power plant was included as part of the sea boundaries as it harvests solar power from the ocean. The footage we offer operate as fragments rather than finished products in Littoral Chronicle. We hope these clips will float around the internet like pieces of the ocean.