From May 1 to 20, 2025, the North Korean Human Rights Museum hosted a special solo exhibition by Eun-jeong Oh, a North Korean escapee, artist, and writer. This exhibition was the final event before the museum’s temporary closure and was presented alongside the exhibition The Echo Never Stops.
Oh Eun-jeong, who arrived in South Korea in 2009, is also the author of I Came from a Strange Land. In this book, she reflects on her escape from North Korea, her experiences integrating into South Korean society, and her lasting emotional connection to her homeland. The personal insights shared in her writing offer valuable context for interpreting the works featured in the exhibition, which are deeply rooted in memory, identity, and the search for expression.
Through this exhibition, the artist offered a powerful reflection on freedom of expression, a right she was once denied. Her paintings, grounded in memories of growing up in a seaside village in North Hamgyong Province, are deeply connected to nature, loss, and longing.
The exhibition’s featured piece, Light (2022), was inspired by a vivid memory of looking up at the sky while submerged underwater. Through this work, she evokes the shimmering play of light, the movement of the waves, and the emotions that surfaced in that suspended moment. Selected as the exhibition’s poster image, Light captured and conveyed the emotional essence of the entire show.
Visitors were invited not only to view the realities of life in North Korea through the artist’s lens, but also to reflect on the broader meaning of human rights and the importance of self-expression. The exhibition served as a reminder that art can bear witness, preserve memory, and spark dialogue on the freedoms we often take for granted.
We thank everyone who visited the exhibition and supported the museum's mission during this important final chapter before relocation.
From May 1 to 20, 2025, the North Korean Human Rights Museum hosted a special solo exhibition by Eun-jeong Oh, a North Korean escapee, artist, and writer. This exhibition was the final event before the museum’s temporary closure and was presented alongside the exhibition The Echo Never Stops.
Oh Eun-jeong, who arrived in South Korea in 2009, is also the author of I Came from a Strange Land. In this book, she reflects on her escape from North Korea, her experiences integrating into South Korean society, and her lasting emotional connection to her homeland. The personal insights shared in her writing offer valuable context for interpreting the works featured in the exhibition, which are deeply rooted in memory, identity, and the search for expression.
Through this exhibition, the artist offered a powerful reflection on freedom of expression, a right she was once denied. Her paintings, grounded in memories of growing up in a seaside village in North Hamgyong Province, are deeply connected to nature, loss, and longing.
The exhibition’s featured piece, Light (2022), was inspired by a vivid memory of looking up at the sky while submerged underwater. Through this work, she evokes the shimmering play of light, the movement of the waves, and the emotions that surfaced in that suspended moment. Selected as the exhibition’s poster image, Light captured and conveyed the emotional essence of the entire show.
Visitors were invited not only to view the realities of life in North Korea through the artist’s lens, but also to reflect on the broader meaning of human rights and the importance of self-expression. The exhibition served as a reminder that art can bear witness, preserve memory, and spark dialogue on the freedoms we often take for granted.
We thank everyone who visited the exhibition and supported the museum's mission during this important final chapter before relocation.