Second story of Gaji Gaji, DMZ(DeMilitarised Zone)
Gaji Gaji is an independent publishing project that unfolds stories of things that have been overlooked or unfamiliar. (‘Gaji Gaji’ is a Korean word meaning ‘every kind’.) The second book is a story about animals living in the DMZ.
Korea is the only divided country left in the world. At the end of World War II, Korea was liberated from the Japanese colonial control. However, although the country's independence was promised at the Cairo meeting, South Korea and North Korea was divided at the 38th parallel into two zones stationed by America and the Soviet Union.
After years of conflict between the two polarized countries, Korean war happened on the dawn of the 25th of June, 1950. The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, and Korean DMZ was created when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed.
DMZ zone is each 2km away from the 38th parallel line. This is a neutral zone that must keep peace with no weapons or military facilities. For 65 years, there has been preserved nature itself in DMZ. This area became a safe haven for animals that were facing danger of extinction or had no place to go due to urbanization. The area that was created as a result of war ironically became a place to symbolize peace and nature.
As DMZ has global value itself, we wanted this story to be met with as many readers as possible. Thus we published the book to contain both Korean and English. This project was launched in Crowdfunding platform Tumblebug, and has been successfully funded. Since then we are designing related products and meeting readers through various channels.
We warmly hope this book will increase awareness of DMZ and the animals that live there.
Agency: 40000km
Team Credit: Jina Kim, Rinjee Oh, Yeonou Lee, Jouen Baek
Role: Concept development, Creative direction, Book design, Illustration, Project manager
Time: 2018. 03 - 2018.10
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