On the Incheon Peace Festival: From "No Sincere Peace" to a Living Reality
- Bhang, Youngmoon
- Sep 21
- 5 min read
Nulla in mundo pax sincera
(In this world there is no true peace)
"Nulla in mundo pax sincera
sine felle; pura et vera,
dulcis Jesu, est in te.
Inter poenas et tormenta
vivit anima contenta
casti amoris sola spe.
Blando colore oculos mundus decepit
at occulto vulnere corda conficit;
fugiamus ridentem, vitemus sequentem,
nam delicias ostentando arte secura
vellet ludendo superare.
Spirat anguis
inter flores et colores
explicando tegit fel.
Sed occulto factus ore
homo demens in amore
saepe lambit quasi mel." (from an anonymous Latin text)
The Latin motet Nulla in mundo pax sincera, famously set to music by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741),
begins with the declaration: “In this world, there is no sincere peace.”
This is not merely a religious lament but a chilling diagnosis of the human condition—a recognition that the peace we experience is always conditional, incomplete, and at times, utterly false. This structure, where despair intersects with possibility and lack coexists with longing, finds a powerful resonance in the tragic history of the Korean War and the cultural responses that have emerged from its ashes.
On September 10, 1950, in preparation for the Incheon Landing, U.S. forces unleashed a massive preemptive bombing campaign on Wolmido Island. It was a strategic choice to neutralize a key military location. But on that land lived a community of over 100 households, some 600 residents. The village was incinerated, and countless civilians were sacrificed. Under the justification of military necessity, the island’s inhabitants were treated not as people to be protected but as ‘obstacles’ to be removed. Thus, the modern history of Wolmido is indelibly inscribed with the lived experience of “Nulla in mundo pax sincera.”
In the aftermath of the bombing, Wolmido was immediately converted into a military base, and for over fifty years, its residents were barred from returning to their homes. The violence of war was succeeded by the structural violence of forced displacement and historical oblivion. The Incheon Landing is celebrated in the grand narrative of a great victory, yet the civilian massacre and the decades of enforced silence are conveniently omitted. For the people of Wolmido, this was a false peace, a bitter testament to the human condition.
Beginning with the formation of the "Committee for the Homecoming of Wolmido Natives" in 1997, survivors and their families waged a long struggle for truth and the restoration of memory. In 2008, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea officially recognized the Wolmido Incident as a “massacre of civilians by U.S. bombing.” Finally, in 2021, a memorial was erected, its inscription bearing the explicit phrase: “bombing by the United States.”
It is from this current of history that the Incheon Peace Festival emerged. Inaugurated in 2002 as the “Wolmisan Peace Festival,” it was an attempt to plant the memories of the victims on the very ground the military had vacated, transforming a space of war into a site for peace. While the Ministry of Defense and the City of Incheon commemorate a “city of victory” with reenactments of the landing operation, the Peace Festival has established itself as a powerful counter-commemoration—one that mourns the victims and honors life. The festival illuminates the sacrifices obscured by the official narrative and channels the memory of sorrow into an energy of solidarity.
At this juncture, I am brought back to Nulla in mundo pax sincera. The text, having declared the absence of pure peace, concludes by singing of a peace made possible through faith, hope, and love. The reality of Wolmido proved the former statement, but the Incheon Peace Festival strives toward the vision of the latter. It has worked to transform an impossible peace into a tangible possibility through art and solidarity. The festival is not an act of merely ruminating on past traumas; it is an act of generating new social imaginaries and communal hope from the heart of that memory.
The meaning of the Incheon Peace Festival is therefore clear.
In a world that screams “Nulla in mundo pax sincera,”
it is a mechanism that draws out a “possible peace” through the practice of art and culture.
It is a process that does not deny the despair experienced by the victims of Wolmido,
but rather builds a solidarity of hope and love upon it.
The Incheon Peace Festival is an endeavor,
at the precise intersection of historical wounds and the longing for life,
to prove that peace is not a mere ideal,
but a living, breathing, communal reality.
Artist's Note for the 24th Incheon Peace Festival Poster
In the process of creating the photography for this year’s Peace Festival, I sought to capture a temporarily suspended liminal zone through the silence and stillness expressed in the images. The photograph in the poster depicts Manghyangdae which means, an altar for homesick displaced people, at the northern tip of Gyodongdo Island. Beyond the horizon-like expanse of barbed wire fence, one can see Hwanghae Province in North Korea.
Though the early September daytime temperatures still climbed above 30°C, I ventured outdoors to photograph on the islands of Gyodong, Seokmo, and Ganghwa. My purpose was to capture spaces in Incheon that connect with the meaning of the ‘2025 Incheon Peace Festival.’ The reason I tried to imbue the photos with an almost desolate sense of ‘silence’ was not to capture some kind of ‘aura,’ but rather to create a threshold through the ‘estrangement of the everyday space.’
The experience of things being ‘the same, yet holding a completely different meaning’ is quite common when one encounters social movements and activists. I was the photographer for the Seoul Social Innovation Project in 2013 and for the past several years have been photographing a program for women activists run by Ewha Womans University and Yuhan-Kimberly. Because of this, I believe I have some sense of the ‘scent’ of these civil society and non-profit organizations. It is undeniable that their world can seem utterly foreign to some. Therefore, when I received the festival’s framework and the title <Breath, Respite>, I prefer to choose 'respite' than 'rest' because of the meaning of context of the festival and historical facts, the task I set for myself was to create a kind of ‘doorway.’
The inflection point of breath—the moment of transition from inhalation to exhalation, and from exhalation back to inhalation—is not a simple transfer of air but a form of musical turn. This instant, when the diaphragm rests at a zero point, is a moment of delicate balance, a moment of conversion. For an ‘inflection point’ to exist mathematically, not only must the rate of change be zero, but the signs (like - and +) must also reverse.
This serves as a powerful metaphor. It is about momentarily halting the flow of conventional language, customs, and systems. Within that pause, we invite a different stratum of sense and thought, suspending the simple, intuitive networks of everyday meaning. In that void, a threshold space opens, leading to a new world of significance. This ‘pause’ is the interval required for transformation, and this interval is what creates art.
Artistic expression possesses the exact same structure. A work of art is not merely a finished product; art truly comes into being only at the moment a viewer’s perception is shaken, halted, and transitions toward a new awareness. Art is not an outcome but a rhythm, a musical act that stops and restarts the flow.
Art manifests in the brief, subtle pause, like the inflection point of breath.
It is not about expressing something, but about designing a ‘field’ where novelty can emergently connect through this pause. The fundamental power of art lies not in its final form, but in its musical ability to generate this rhythm, this interval, and this experience of transformation.
Just as breathing is the most basic rhythm that sustains our life,
art is the rhythm that renews humanity and society.
ARTIST. BHANG Youngmoon (Sep. 21. 2025)
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