By Xu Aiying and Yoon Hee Young
Goseong-gun County, Gangwon-do Province
Photos = Xu Aiying

Video = Gangwon Culture TV’s YouTube channel

Opening the curtains of a hotel room, a wire mesh on the windows and a barrier fence on the coastal boundary block the broad ocean view. The art hotel Remaker, where Korea.net staff visited on June 3, "instantly deletes" the excitement of beach-seeking tourists to remind them of the reality of the divided Korean Peninsula.

The hotel is located near Korea's northernmost beach of Myeongpa in the East Sea in Hyeonnae-myeon Township of Goseong-gun County, Gangwon-do Province. The beach, whose name means "a beach with clear waves," has a barrier fence as a coastal boundary blocking the white sandy beach from the blue sea.

Remaker is the world's second art hotel on a border area after the Walled Off Hotel built by the British artist Banksy in Bethlehem, Palestine. Eight teams of artists renovated the eerily deserted accommodation Myeongpa DMZ Beach House for six months and reopened it on May 20.

The hotel has a pair of two-story white buildings with a combined area of 660 square m. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the governments of the provinces of Gangwon-do and Gyeonggi-do and the city of Incheon ran the project to create new resources for culture, arts and tourism by transforming the border area's military image into one of peace.

Each of the eight teams remodeled a room with a different concept, similar to opening a box of chocolates not knowing what is inside. Each building has four art rooms that constitute works of art and exhibitions themselves, and every item in a room including the sofa, cup and wallpaper went through the hands of the artists.

"Weird Tension," one of the rooms at the art hotel Remaker of Myeongpa Beach in Goseong-gun County, Gangwon-do Province, has a beautiful view of the blue sea blocked by a wire fence, a stark reminder of inter-Korean division.

The hotel's location near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) promoted artist Omyo Cho to create the room "Weird Tension," whose keyword is "discomfort." Awkward and unfamiliar forms of everyday things taken for granted are in this room. A bathroom door with 12 knobs and a TV on the ceiling watchable only when lying down features the inconvenience of a comfortable hotel room, symbolizing the peaceful yet tense national division.

"Spectroom" was inspired by a rainbow above the ocean of Goseong-gun County.

"Author Kim's Room" features a virtual displaced character. 

The other unique rooms are "Nature Design Home Project," which interprets the ecology and the nature of the DMZ; "Metal Room," made with metals from weapons and strategic materials; and "Author Kim's Room," which features a virtual displaced character.

The hotel is open for exhibition only. Visitors can use the cafe, restaurant and community room and visitors to the nearby Unification Observatory and DMZ Museum can stop by Remaker. Specific information on accommodation and how to use the facility will be released after June 15 after selecting an operating company.

The project's art director Hong Kyoung-han said, "The DMZ, which symbolizes the world's only divided country, is the world's last forbidden land where tragedy and hope intersect," adding, "Hotel Remaker is not mere accommodation but a laboratory of chaos to face the reality of the Korean people living inside the wall of 70 years of history after the Korean War and rigid ideology."

This is an exterior view of Remaker. Covering 660 square m, the hotel has two buildings with eight rooms and facilities like a cafe, restaurant and community room.