When Seoul Surprises: Damien’s Shark and the Philosophy of Namjooning

For years, Damien Hirst’s famous shark existed only through a conversation with my children.

Kuya once spoke about Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living as a class topic in his humanities class. ARMY Daughter, who works in a museum joined the conversation. I have been with artists long enough to understant the quentessence and quirks of artworks. A shark in a tank of formaldehyde is outrageous, indeed, but I never thought that one day I would stand before the work itself.

Last week, at the National Museum of Modern Contemporary Art in Seoul, I finally did.

It was larger than I had imagined.

Suspended in a glass tank, the shark appeared impossibly still, yet strangely alive. It was neither simply dead nor fully alive. It existed in tension. I found myself thinking not only about death, but about what I have come to understand as the life-death-life cycle.

This year marks ten years since my transient ischemic attack, also known as mini-stroke.

Ten years ago, life divided itself into a before and an after. Since then came other endings: COVID, Menopause , Ouie and Mama’s passing, Papa’s slow disappearance into dementia, friendships that faded, relationships that quietly unraveled, abandonment in a fickle fanbase, children growing into adults.

Looking back, I realize that life has never moved in a straight line. It unfolds in cycles. Something ends. Something is lost. Something new quietly begins.

Standing before Hirst’s shark, I understood that contemporary art does not always seek to comfort us. It asks us to remain present before life’s contradictions long enough for them to reveal something true.

We left the museum and as we wander into Cafe Homie for coffee, I carried a strange feeling of contentment.

As I ordered our drinks, only then did I discover that Namjoon had once spent time there and had taken a photograph from the space where I happened to be sitting.

The coincidence made me giddy. It also completed the day.

One artist had invited me to contemplate mortality. Another quietly reminded me how to inhabit life. Suddenly, I understood Namjooning a little differently. It is not about collecting places because RM once visited them. It is not about reproducing someone else’s itinerary. It is about cultivating the same habits of attention.

Standing before difficult works of art. Reading widely. Walking without hurry. Sitting in cafés. Listening more than speaking. Allowing museums, rivers, trees, books, art, music and conversations to reshape the way we see the world.

That afternoon, we wandered through a small gallery in Insadong. We rode bicycles along the Hangang. We cooled our tired feet in a shallow stream while children laughed nearby and elderly couples watched the evening settle over the river.

Looking back now, I realize that nothing extraordinary happened. We simply paid attention. And be.

Perhaps that is why the day remains one of the most meaningful moments of our Bangtan Pilgrimage. I came to Korea hoping to understand the culture that shaped BTS. Instead, I received more.

I came home understanding something about my own life. That is the invitation of both Damien Hirst and Kim Namjoon of BTS. To keep looking. To keep wondering. To keep making. To keep living.

Survival becomes a story where life thrives. The opposite of death is not life. It is forgetting to live.