London Korean Links

Here’s what I know about so far:

Festivals

• Dulsori participates in the Henley Festival, 9-13 July
• The Korean Food Festival takes place in New Malden, 12 July
• The Edinburgh Fringe starts, with lots of Korean participation, from 30 July
• The London Festival of Architecture continues until 20 July, with the Seoul: World Design City exhibition at the KCC

Visual Arts

• Sea-hyun Lee continues at the Union Gallery, till 7 July
• Secondary Sensation continues at I-MYU, also till 7 July
• Francesca Cho displays a new installation in Mayfair public library, 16-31 July
• Psycho Buildings continues all month at the Hayward Gallery, with input from Suh Do-ho.
• 17 – 20 July Shin Meekyoung demonstrates her soap sculptures at Waterperry House, Oxfordshire, part of Art in Action

Music

• Yu Byung-yun conducts Bruckner 6 with the Thames Philharmonia in Surbiton, 5 July.
• Dulsori teaches Samulnori evening classes at SOAS, 7-11 July.

Film

• Good news for film fans: in July the KCC are featuring the films of Lee Chang-dong. Green Fish on 10 July with Peppermint Candy on 24 July.
• Even better news: FINALLY some Kim Ki Young films get a release on DVD. At YesAsia from 10 July

TV

• In a 12-week story-line that’s as secret as what’s probably still going on at Yongbyon, Seok-Ha Hwang appears in BBC1’s Holby City as a North Korean, from Tuesday 8 July.

Lectures at the KCC

• 11 July – Architects from Zaha Hadid’s firm will explain the vision behind the design for Seoul World Design Plaza
• 18 July – Jane Portal talks about the British Museum’s Korean collection
• 22 July – Rhee Eonuh from Indarti Associates talks about Occidental Architects and their Architecture in Korea

Stage

• 17 July - Floating Water perform ID, or maybe it’s the other way round, at the KCC

DPRK

• North Korea All-Party Parliamentary Group is holding its AGM on Monday July 7 in House of Lords Room 3 at 4pm

Let me know what I’ve missed. Thanks in particular to Claire for the hot tip about Holby City, and to the KCC for giving me advance notice of their events list.

This post is likely to be incomplete as it was written a while ago, before I went on holiday. In particular, it is likely to omit one or two events at the KCC. If you know of anything to be added, please leave a comment below.

KCC Film nights

• This month the theme is the Family. First up, on 8 May, is The Way Home, a touching film about a spoiled brat from the city who has to stay with his grandmother in the countryside. Later, on 22 May, we will get Family Ties.

Stage

• Jump continues at the Peacock until 10 May. You really should go.

Classical Music

• Min-jung Kym accompanies Pierre Amoyal at the Wigmore on 31 May in a programme of French violin sonatas.

Visual arts

• The KCC’s contemporary art show continues until 16 May
• Lee Ufan’s minimalist paintings and sculptures continue at the Lisson Gallery until 10 May.
• Sea-hyun Lee shows at the Union Gallery from 7 May

Talks, lectures, seminars, history

• Warwick Morris spends an evening with the AKS on 7 May
• Owen Miller talks on the 19th century merchant guilds in Cambridge on 5 May
• Jiyoon Lee talks on contemporary Japanese and Korean art practices at the Courtauld on 19 May
• A fascinating half day on 31 May, again in Cambridge, looks at how East Asian media presents the past
• The KCC’s next exhibition, starting in the second half of May, is of a collection of antique maps of the Korean peninsula.

Addendum here

Academia and discussions

The last SOAS Centre for Korean Studies Friday seminar is on 7 March - Kevin Gray of Sussex University talks on Democracy, Neoliberalism and the Crisis of the Korean Labour Movement. 5pm, G52, Main Building, SOAS.

Former UK ambassador to Seoul Warwick Morris addresses the Korea Discussion Group at Chatham House on 17 March. His subject is Out with the Old and In with the New.

DPRK

DPRK Ambassadar Ja Song Nam addresses members of both Houses of Parliament in the Moses Room at 6pm on 4 March.

Film

Im Kwon-taek’s Beyond the Years will be screened at the KCC at 7pm on 27 March

Art

I-MYU’s March show, Around the Clock, runs from 6 March to 5 April, featuring Yutaka Inagawa and Taek Lim.

The exhibition of modern Korean folk art on white porcelain continues at the Cultural Centre, and in what (based on the last-minute nature of the publicity) appears to be an afterthought, curator Jiyoon Lee talks about the Nam June Paik exhibition on 6 March at 6pm.

Social

The Korean Language Meetup Group meets up on 22 March at 6pm.

Activities of members of Korean Artists Association UK

Jin-yeob Cha (dance) performs in ENO’s Madame Butterfly until 7 March

Min-jung Kym (piano) accompanies Pierre Amoyal at the Royal College of Music, 1pm on 11 March, and again in Chethams School (Manchester) at 7:30pm on 12 March, in performances of the Poulenc and Franck violin sonatas

Theatre4all have arranged some musical entertainment with guitarist Dimitris and pianist Na Won Kim at Hobkirk House, near the Malden Centre (New Malden) at 2pm on 8 March.

Let me know what I’ve missed.

Visual Arts

Arcadia continues at I-MYU till 14 January. The next show will be from 31 January featuring Bon-a Koo and Yeonsoo Ha.

Francesca Cho participates in a World Religion Day exhibition at Novas Gallery, the Contemporary Urban Centre, 73-81 Southwark Bridge Rd, London SE1 0NQ, from 18 January.

And, if you happen to be in Italy, she is also participating in the group exhibition commemorating the 200th anniversary of Garibaldi’s birth, in the Bergamo History Museum, from 10-20 January.

Finally, last year’s exhibition and sale of DPRK art in La Galleria has a Part Two. 9-21 January the Oils will be on show.

Stage

Sadari Movement Laboratory reprise their Edinburgh hit Woyzeck at the South Bank (QEH), 24 - 26 January.

Societies

The Korean Language meetup convenes on 26 January.

The Anglo-Korean Society AGM is on 23 January at the Embassy.

Academia

The SOAS Centre of Korean Studies starts up its spring evening seminar series on Friday 18 January with Staffan Rosen of Stockholm University on the Imperial Korean System of Decorations 1900-1910.

Seminar 2 is on 25 January with Valerie Gelezeau of EHESS, on Landscapes of power in Seoul - Apartment complexes and the modernization of the South Korean city.

Seminar 3 is on 31 January when Carl Saxer will talk on “The Return of the Regions or the Rise of Seoul? Observations on the Recent Presidential Election in South Korea” (Not 1 February as previously advised)

The 8^th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights & Refugees; ‘North Korea: New Approaches‘, will be held at Chatham House on Tuesday January 22.

Classical Music

Ryu Jeong-ah gives a lunchtime piano recital at St Sepulchre’s, Holborn, at 1pm on 30 January.

Trot Music

Trot star Kim Soo-hee will be performing at St John’s Smith Square on 26 January at 7:30pm. The event is so secret that it is not even advertised on the St John’s website. My spies had to work overtime to deliver the goods on this one…

And, saving the best till last…

Congratulations to Choi Kyu-hak and all at the Cultural Centre. They should be up and running at the end of this month in their new location. A big art exhibition featuring, it is rumoured, the work of Baik Nam June will be the opening event in February. More soon.

Please let me know of any omissions.

Here’s what I know about:

• Han Style comes to London 3 - 8 November, with a hanbok exhibition at the Royal College of Arts and an afternoon of Korean culture at the Victoria & Albert museum on 4 November.
• Asian Art in London has a number of antique Korean arts and crafts for sale, of which the highlight is possibly the hanbok and textiles at Linda Wrigglesworth.
• For something a bit more contemporary, To the furthest verge continues at I-MYU until 10 November. A new exhibition, Arcadia, commences on 23 November.
• For those who wish to study contemporary Asian Art, there’s an intensive one-week course at SOAS 5-9 November.
• The Korean Discussion Group meets at Chatham House on 15 November with a talk by Charles Scanlon, distinguished former BBC Seoul Correspondent.
• SOAS’s Centre for Korean Studies commences its series of free evening seminars.
• Sunwook Kim comes to London to give two performances - a solo recital on the 4th and Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody with the LPO on the 9th.
• The London Korean Film Festival hits the Barbican, 2-8 November, followed by Warwick 9-11 November and Oxford 12-14 November.
• Kayagum player Choi Jin plays at SOAS on 19 November.
• Mime Artist Ko Jae-kyung performs as part of the New Malden Festival 22-24 November.
• The Korean Language Meetup assembles on 24 November.

Film & DVD:

• HKL / Premier Asia releases City of Violence on UK DVD on 24 September
• This year’s hot film, Secret Sunshine, gets a Korean DVD release on 20 September while Park Jin-pyo (of You are my Sunshine) sees his Voice of a Murderer issued on DVD a couple of days later.

Social:

• The Anglo-Korean Society Chuseok dinner is on 20 September at Young Bean in the Barbican.
• The Korean Language meet-up group gets together on 22 September.

Academic / discussions

• The Korea Discussion Group meets at Chatham House at lunchtime on 5 September. Ambassador Paul Beijer will talk on a Swedish diplomat’s take on North Korea since 2001
• Extracts from the BBC documentary “Access to Evil” will be shown, followed by a discussion, on 20 September on the eastern outskirts of the City.
• The Korean Studies graduate student convention (www.ksgsc.org), due to take place in Edinburgh on 20-22 September has been pushed back to 24-26 October.

Performances & Festivals:

• Dulsori will be playing at Mayor Ken’s Thames Festival, on 16 September at 4pm. There will in fact be a Korean Village situated somewhere between Ken’s building and Tower Bridge, with activities such as lantern-making. A big thank-you to Rowan Pease for letting me know about this (and she only knew about it because she took the Dulsori drumming classes at SOAS this year). The event would otherwise have been shrouded in the all-too-frequent Korean veil of secrecy until a couple of days beforehand.
• Chuseok at the British Museum: for those who miss the Thames Festival, some of the participants including Dulsori will be doing repeat performances a week later: the forecourt of the British Museum will resound to the sound of Samulnori on 22 September sometime between 12 and 6pm. Full details here.
• I hear that The Ballerina who loves B-Boyz, the hit show from the Edinburgh Fringe, in going on tour. It plays at the Arundel Festival Fringe, 10-15 September, and London’s Cochrane Theatre from 23 September, according to Koreaspot.com. It’s not on the Cochrane’s website at the moment and I’m attempting alternative verification procedures. Update 18 September: I just managed to get through to the Cochrane. The show is not coming to that theatre. They have no information as to whether an alternative venue is planned.
• Just into October (on the 4th), pianist Ji-Yeoun You performs Schubert, Ravel, and Liszt at the Lancaster Hall Hotel London W2. More details to follow.

Last chance:

• Artists, Art and Culture of North Korea officially closes on 3 September, but it will in fact linger on for an additional week or so. They received new stock of propaganda posters earlier this week. In addition, the North Korean theme will be extended back in time to include some pre-division work: for a week only, from 3 September, there will be some Choson dynasty porcelain on display (and for sale).

And while on the subject of Choson dynasty porcelain, the British Museum’s Korean Moon Jar will be on prominent display in Room 3, the entrance to the museum, from 20 September.

Other exhibitions:

• Eo-Ulim / In Harmony, an exhibition of young Korean artists working in London will be showing in North Finchley, from 13 to 19 September.
• More DPRK art from Korea Paekho Trading Corporation on display at the DPRK embassy, 21/22 September.
• Two Korean photographers Seung Woo Back and Hyung-Geun Park participate in Abandoned Protocol at Ritter / Zamet near the Globe Theatre on the South Bank, 7-29 September.

Further afield

• Francesca Cho participates in the group exhibition Rags in the Wind at the University of Graz Botanical Gardens from 15 September.

And further ahead…

• Make sure you’re in London in early November for the Korean Film Festival at the Barbican, 2-8 November. More details to come soon. The festival will tour to Warwick and Oxford thereafter.

Let me know what I’ve missed.

Here’s what I know about:

Visual Arts

• The big news for July is the start of the exhibition Artists, Art and Culture of North Korea. Opens 18 July. Watch this site for further news on associated events
• Choi Jeong-hwa’s exhibition continues at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery. More soon.

Academia, discussions etc

• Two talks at Chatham House on 4 and 5 July - the DPRK ambassadors on the afternoon of the 4th and Korea - Japan relations at lunchtime on the 5th.

Performance Arts

• Oh Tae-seok’s play, the Bicycle, is on at Camdem People’s Theatre for two weeks 10 - 29 July.
• There’s an evening of Korean dance at Asia House, 18 July
• Learn Korean Drumming at the SOAS summer school. Dulsori are great teachers, and when the government discovers you can have so much fun for so little money they will ban it.

Of-the-wall

• Beauty commando Seong Won Kim continues his brief tenure at the Selfridges Dior counter until 4 July. Book your makeover now. Free if you buy £25 of Dior cosmetics. Go on, you know you’re worth it (or whatever the slogan is).
• A Korean food festival at the Fountain Pub in New Malden, 14 July
• Support the Slowpokes from the Korean Embassy at the Standard Chartered Great City Race on 19 July

Further ahead

• ISKS Conference, SOAS, 16-17 August. A massive undertaking with 150 attendees and 100 presenters. I’m not sure how the organisers are going to fit in all the action, but I hear there are going to be four parallel streams.
• KSGSC Conference in Edinburgh, 20-22 September. Maybe those who don’t manage to squeeze into the SOAS schedule can present at Edinburgh instead
• Dulsori (see above) will be appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe in August, as will (I think) the B-boy slapstick show Breakout (also inexplicably known as Picnic)

Let me know what I’ve missed

May is a quiet month for Korean events, so far as I am aware.

The London Korean Film Festival 2007 and associated cultural events, which following the precedent of previous years would be towards the end of May, will actually be happening in June this year according to my latest intelligence. The provisional date is 22 June for about a week. No more details available at the moment. Update, 30 May 2007: the film festival will not be taking place this year. However, I hear that as last year there will be a festival in the Autumn organised by the Korean Cultural Centre.

May events are as follows:

Arts

• Last chance to see Andreas Gursky’s giant photos of the Arirang Festival. The White Cube show closes 5 May (review here)
• Roe Kyung-jo’s (노경조) show From Canvas to Ceramic continues at Galerie Besson until 24 May (review here)
• I hear second-hand rumours of an exhibition involving some Korean artists in the middle of May at Ritter/Zamet gallery near the Globe in London SE1, but at the time of writing I’m still awaiting details from the gallery. Watch this space.

Talks and seminars

• The Korea Discussion Group at Chatham House on 11 May will be on the subject of forced labour in North Korean prison camps
• A two day Korean Studies conference will be held at SOAS on 25 & 26 May. Details and programme to be confirmed.

Film & DVD

• A free screening of Koryo Saram at SOAS on 2 May. I’m not going to be able to go to this, so if anyone wants to volunteer to provide a report of the evening for this site, that would be most appreciated.
• The Quiet Family, Crying Fist, Ring Virus, Christmas in August, Soul Gardians, Real Fiction, Addicted, Bizarre Love Triangle, Harmonium in my Memory, Humanist, Run 2 U, Guns and Talks, Say Yes, and No Blood No Tears, are all due for May Region 2 DVD release, according to Play.com. I could have sworn that many of these were already available here.

Social

• Korean Language meet-up in the West End, 26 May.

Apart from the above, don’t forget some longer-term dates for the diaries:

• The DPRK art exhibition and associated cultural events (including, hopefully, London’s first screening of Dan Gordon’s Crossing the Line) from 17 July to 3 September
• The SOAS Samulnori Summer School with Dulsori, 16-20 July. Last year was great fun.
• The Edinburgh Festival will have a revamped production of Break Out.

Music, dance and stage

• Keith Howard and Rowan Pease present Korean music old and new at Asia House on 6 March. Keith will be autographing copies of his recent books.
• Many of us will be heaving a sigh of relief at the discriminatory age-cap applied to the Korean breakdance masterclass at the Roundhouse on March 18. Obviously, I would have signed up if it were open to the over-25s.
• There’s a more genteel session in the morning, where under-25s can have a go at Korean traditional instruments.
• Jump continues at the Peacock.

Film

• Kim So-yong’s In Between Days will be showing at the Birds Eye View Film Festival at the ICA on 9 and 12 March.
• The Oh Soojung Hong Sang-soo Blogathon takes place on 21 March. If anyone feels moved to contribute and wants a forum to publish their thoughts, I’m happy to provide space.
• The Duellist is now scheduled to have a nationwide release on 9 March (brought forward from 31 March, which date was itself a postponement of a date in December last year). Maybe it will actually happen this time.
• Bong Joon-ho’s The Host gets a region 2 DVD release on 5 March. All the extras you can think of apart from a director’s commentary. What’s the betting that will come out in a few month’s time?
• The rather mediocre Korean remake of The Ring gets a region 2 DVD release a week later, as does Kim Ki-duk’s Real Fiction (which you can buy for 4 quid), The Humanist, Soul Guardians… in fact there are so many Korean films being released this month according to Play.com that I just got bored listing them out. What’s incredible is that there’s now around 100 Korean DVDs listed there.

Art

• Kang Seunghee’s colourful work continues on display at Gallery Yujiro
• Kim Sora is still showing at the Baltic space in Gateshead
• Francesca Cho will be showing in the West Wing arts centre in Slough from 3 March

Societies & Academia

• Anglo Korean Society AGM takes place at the Embassy on 14 March, while
• on 22 March the British Ambassador to Korea will present some topical thoughts, again to the AKS.
• The Centre for Korean Studies at SOAS will be presenting a lecture on geomancy in Choson dynasty Korea on 2 March at 5pm (room G52)
• Tessa Morris-Suzuki will be talking at Birkbeck on “Exodus to North Korea: Pursuing the Shadows of the Cold War”, March 19.

Books

• Keith Howard is signing some of his books at Asia House (see first entry above)
• Tom Coyner’s book, Mastering Business in Korea - A Practical Guide, is due for release on Tuesday, 6 March. Available from Seoul Selection.

Tell me what I’ve missed

The Through the Looking Glass exhibition at Asia House continues. Lee Jiyoon’s series of Wednesday morning lectures (Art & Society in Modern Korea) commences on 10 January, and there are two related evening events: Choi Jeong-hwa on 22 January and Chong Doryun on 29 January. All at Asia House.

Paul French, author of the wide-ranging book on North Korea, speaks at the Frontline Club on 17 January, while the SOAS Centre for Korean Studies programme of Friday evening talks includes Vladimir Tikhonov on Militarism and anti-militarism in South Korea on 12 January, and Yannick Bruneton on Koryo period epigraphy on 19 January.

Other special events are the Korean business reception at the London Assembly building on 15 January and the Atlas of Ideas conference on 17 and 18 January.

Korean dancer So-Yeon Kim performs in Ballet Black at the Linbury Studio from 31 January.

Start thinking about booking flights and hotels for ARCO Madrid in February. Details are still being finalised and I’ll post updates as and when I hear them.

We’re off to a flying start to the year!

Let me know if I’ve missed anything

This month’s events are:

The open air Korean festival on the Fairfield which I’m told is near Kingston station. I believe it’s on 12 August. The only details I have are gleaned from running the Korean Residents Society’s events page through the google translator. The mangled prose which emerges for August is

Korean banking (Korean Festival)

Overseas compatriot foundation real picture team Korean sliced raw fish visit

Kingston from Fairfield Ground Korean banking holding

Informative, huh? But I’ve spoken to my secretary who went along to this last year (her sister teaches English to some Korean kids) and she says it’s great fun. Seriously though, if any of you know anyone at the Korean Residents Association and can get any further information about this or any other events that they organise, please let me know. They haven’t been too responsive to me when I’ve phoned them and emailed them.

[Update - see the more useful link to the Kingston borough website in the comment from daeguowl beneath this post]

There’s also the cinematic event of the year, the London premiere of Bong Joon-ho’s film The Host, on 28 August. Email me if you intend coming to this - Jase and I will be meeting up for a beer and maybe a bulgogki beforehand, and it would be good to meet some more kindred spirits.

Further afield, there’s a conference on the Korean peninsula up in York, 15-18 August; and there’s a discussion on North Korea at Chatham House on the 17th.

And don’t forget to fill out your application forms for the BAKS conference. Deadline August 21. The conference programme is here.

The 2006 London Korean Festival is now over. You can still comment on the films here, and also please give some feedback on the film festival generally by filling out my survey here. Comment on the Traditional Yet Contemporary exhibition here. If you managed to get to the final event, Professor Kim Chang-nam’s talk, please review my summary of the evening and correct any inaccuracies. Thanks to Tae-min, Stephanie, the sponsors, and all involved in this year’s festival for all their hard work. Also on at the moment in the Cat Hill Gallery in Wimbledon is a show of flower paintings by artist Roh Sook-ja, till 25 June. The Anglo-Korean Society dinner is on 14 June, the global week of prayer for North Korea is 19-25 June, and don’t forget the Yohangza Theatre Company doing a Korean version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Barbican from 27 June. Note that this site will be a World Cup Free zone for the duration. You can go along to Brick Lane and see the Korean matches for yourself on a mega screen. And a late addition: 13-15 of June at the Bloomsbury Theatre sees the NewRa dance group performing some Korean ritual music, as well as the Rite of Spring, reviewed here. Thanks again to Hyun-ho for spotting this.