This is a contemplation on how symbols and environments influence humanity and history.
The blue and red of the Taegeukgi – could they be inadvertently inscribing the permanence of division into our collective consciousness?
Symbols carry the power to shape mass psychology. The interplay of red and blue, North and South, might be weaving an unintended narrative of eternal separation.
History is always made this way – through unintended overlapping of symbols, through misreadings and reinterpretations.
How each of us reads the flag and the division will shape the picture of history to come.
** Part 2: The Symbolism of Houses and the Web of Media **
Through the medium of Netflix, Spain’s ‘La Casa de Papel’ (Money Heist) crossed over to Korea. In 2025, it was remade as ‘Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area,’ where North and South exist side by side within the Unified Korea Mint – a ‘Paper House’ in every sense.
The Spanish word ‘casa’ means house. Doll house. Paper house. Mint house. These symbolic houses connect through Netflix, a medium that has displaced traditional television worldwide and positioned itself at the center of global culture.
Within this flow of Hallyu – the Korean Wave – we find another chain of connections: the blue and red of the Taegeukgi, the Blue House (Cheongwadae), and the Red House (the Chairman’s residence). These colored houses form a symbolic geography that mirrors the divided peninsula.
How do we symbolically link these elements? How do we continue this conversation? Traditional Christianity rejects all symbols as idolatry – some churches even reject the cross itself. Yet symbols persist, creating webs of meaning.
In this mirror, I find myself connected to Yi Sang’s poem ‘Wings’ – a modernist meditation on freedom and constraint. Like the clipped wings in that poem, perhaps our symbols too become cages that we mistake for sky. The Taegeukgi, the houses, the screens – all forming a mosaic where history writes itself through coincidence and connection.