At the theatre, the performance team is in the midst of preliminary research.

While the members check the stage space and the acoustics, there is one person who seems to exist in a different time: the cleaner, Ms Moon.

After everyone has left the theatre, only Ms Moon remains.

An apple rolls across the floor and stops at her feet. A piece of white paper – a prop from the performance – flutters in the breeze.

In that moment, Ms Moon is drawn into a distant memory as if by magic. People, memories, and events begin to emerge from the paper. She is momentarily pulled back to reality, but the memories keep flooding in.

And so, after drifting through time and memory –

she finds herself in 1980, where she is confronted with Gwangju.

A Play in Which Space Becomes the Protagonist

The Time Painter began at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, home to the largest black box theater in Asia. Since then, it has met audiences in diverse spaces across the country—outdoor stages, a small persimmon tree house in Seoul, and traditional proscenium theaters.

In this play, the true protagonists are not people, but buildings.

In Gwangju, it is the former Jeonnam Provincial Office;

in Seoul, a woman’s house;

in the theater, the stage quietly inhabited by a janitor.

Each of these spaces becomes the heart of the narrative.

The former Jeonnam Provincial Office is a place that preserves the past.

It stands as a silent witness to the May 18 Democratic Uprising and offers quiet consolation to citizens through the memories it holds.

The Time Painter tells the stories of people through the spaces they inhabit.

In Edinburgh in 2025, yet another building will become the stage, offering its own perspective on the lives it has observed.

And at BESETO, a new space—the “BIRD Theatre”—will emerge, evoking memories of another government office and its silent echoes.

These spaces may be silent, but they remember more deeply than any voice.

This play follows the gaze of those spaces, gently painting the passage of time in our lives.

Yoon Sijoong