Koo Jeong A’s series of large watercolour paintings, which depict various large rock formations, follow as a study to her work Consciousness Dilatation for Real DMZ Project 2013 (an exhibition that engaged with a number of sites in proximity to the demilitarized zone in Cheorwon-gun/Gangwon-do, between North and South Korea). Consciousness Dilatation (2013) is an installation of various sized basalt rocks, which Koo collected with Cherwon residents from the land surrounding the DMZ, spread in a constellation across the Peace Plaza at DMZ. In this work Koo looks at the power of the earth; she uses the internal energies of volcanic rocks, like a connecting force field, as an approach to re-connect the two Koreas. Within a constellation there is no beginning or end, it is all about how elements connect and relate to one another. It is the void, or the space in between the rocks, that contains their power. For Koo the void is a metaphoric matter. Alejandro Zambra in his short novel Bonsai (2011) considers the void in the same way. At the end of the story the lead character Julio learns how to glide the void by taking a taxi, explaining how much money he has, and asking the driver to drive in any direction until his time is up on the meter. Through the watercolour paintings Koo captures smaller voids and relationships that exist between the basalt rocks from the larger constellation.

The DMZ is a protected conservation wetland according to the Ramsar Convention, no ecological material can leave the zone otherwise it could create an imbalance. Due to the DMZ being a geographical zone between the two Koreas, it has been able to be protected ecological state. For Koo this also creates a type of void. If this zone was part of either country it would not have been deemed an ecological state. As the Korean War led to this division of the Korean Peninsular, the subsequent demarcation of the DMZ as an ecological state/void between the two countries has come into existence.