WEBZINE ACC

2021 May Mothers’ Songs

At this time of the year, whenever I take the path to the Mangwol-dong Cemetery, where those who lost their lives in the May 18 Democracy Movement of 1980 were laid to rest, I see the white flowers of ipapnamu trees (Chinese fringe trees; Chionanthus retusus) blooming like grains of white rice. These trees, which fill the 3km-long road to the cemetery, symbolize the rice balls that the people of Gwangju ate as they protected the ideals of democracy against the state violence that sought to extinguish it. That is the reason why these trees are known as "May flowers" in Gwangju. These "May flowers", which symbolize "eternal love", adorn the cover of the May Mothers' Songs 1 album.

May Mothers' Songs was prepared by the regional artists of Gwangju and the Asia Culture Center (ACC) for the last 3 years, to capture the spirit of the May 18 Democracy Movement and to continue upholding the values of democracy, human rights, and peace. On October 30, these songs bloomed like the "May flowers", touching the heart of many ACC visitors and bringing the tears that had been suppressed for many years. The han of the eome (mother), an emotion of loss, grief, anger, and resentment, are sublimated from the experiences that deprived them of their children, siblings, and partners into a heart-aching flower that bloomed onto the bosom of the mothers.

"A mother, whose home is at Geumnam-ro Street", "a mother, who falls into sadness in spring", "a thousand-mile trail of thorns, years lost in wailing", "who would know, these mountains and rivers?" These are some of the phrases that one finds in the choral song 5.18 Eome (May 18 mothers). Even the weight of their advanced age cannot stifle their cries for justice and the restoration of the old Jeollanam-do Provincial Office today.

Their tears fall as they sing, each drop a memory of the ones taken from them. They sang because nobody may hear these stories once they pass from this world. When they first joined the project, they could not believe that their lives would become the songs. But now that they have sung the songs, and now that the songs have been completed as an album, the mothers say, the deep-seated han that they have kept in their hearts are now beginning to thaw.

The stories of these fifteen mothers were already published as a pamphlet, "Mothers' Songs", in the form of oral essays and poetry by a member of the Gwangju and Jeonnam branch of the Writers Association of Korea in 2019. In the following year, the Mothers' Songs content project completed the lyrics and songs, leading to the completion of the album and the video in 2021. The video captures the process of recording, interviews, and the moments from the mothers' lives. The album was formed into a CD and a packaged album, and the latter is made up of the CD, the lyrics pamphlet, musical scores for the 15 songs, and a USB stick album.

Director Jong-hwa Park, who served as the supervising director of the May Mothers' Songs project, says "the project is a product of a labor shared by the May Mothers and more than 100 participating artists in the last 3 years", and "in addition to the contents, we hope that these songs will be performed in various stages across Korea, like those in Seoul and Busan, and highlight the contents as well."

For this year, the ACC is planning a traveling performance that will continue the previous years' works on the May Mothers' Songs and spread the spiritual values of the May 18 Democracy Movement across Korea. We hope that the traveling performance will help sustain the values of democracy, human rights, and peace until the future.

• Written by: Sein Kim sein3323@naver.com
  Photography by: ACC
  
  
  
  
  April 2022