The Extinction of Gangchi and the Disseizin of Dokdo

Dokdo’s Gangchi are indegenous Korean sea lions that used Ulleungdo and Dokdo island as a place for habitat, but their existence is already in the past.

This exhibition shows the chronicle of extinction dedicated to Gangchi who were once the owner of Dokdo. It is also a late courtesy to the forgotten original owners and ‘the struggle of memory against forgetting’.

The extinction of species is the result of an anti-civilian genocide, which was simultaneously carried out on a global scale.

The extinction of the dodo 300 years ago and the extinction of Gangchi are alike. Gangchi has entered the phase of extinction of the species when the Japanese colonial era.

Dokdo was a paradise for Gangchi as there were abundant food sources and a lot of decent rocks where Gangchi could take a rest. However, Japan’s slaughter of the Gangchi began and Dokdo’s Gangchi eventually became extinct.

Gangchi hunting, which Japan suggests as the main grounds for territory theory of Takeshima, was in fact an anti-civilized criminal act. The contents related to Gangchi hunting and Dokdo today can be confirmed in the field’s testimony of the village of Gokai, Oki Islands, which was the base of operations for Gangchi hunting.

Through the dedicated poem and the monument for Dokdo’s Gangchi, an epitaph is composed to commemorate the extinct Gangchi. It shows actual conditions for the territorial dispute of Dokdo today.