A very busy month for music, among other things.
Exhibitions:
- Kimsooja’s To Breathe is installed at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park;
- Haegue Yang’s Tracing Movement is at South London Gallery until 26 May;
- Jukhee Kwon’s work is in October Gallery’s 40th birthday show until 25 May;
- Lee Jaehyo and Kim Bumsu are at Pontone Gallery until 15 May;
- Han Collection’s Take a Moment: A selection of Korean Crafts is from 8 May until 12 May (London Craft Week);
- The KCC’s Minhwa exhibition lasts until 18 May. Highly recommended.
Screenings:
- Daily Bread + 50 Years of Silence, two films about a non-Korean comfort woman, screen on 1 May;
- The London East Asia Film Festival celebrates 100 years of Korean film with screenings of Holiday in Seoul and Under the Sky of Seoul on 1 May and 7 May respectively;
- The KCC’s new season of screenings, entitled Home Truths has the following on show:
- The World of Us (2 May);
- An Affair (9 May);
- The Room Nearby (30 May);
- The second LKFF Teaser is the IMF crisis movie Default, on 20 May.
Music and Performance:
- Jessica Hyun Jin Kim plays Cafe Oto on 2 May;
- Notes Inegales will include Hyelim Kim on 2 May;
- Liverpool’s Sound City has at least five Korean bands, 3-5 May;
- Jinjo Crew perform at Breakin’ Convention, 4-5 May;
- A Korean performing arts festival takes place in Kingston Parish Church on 4 May;
- Say Sue Me with Drinking Boys and Girls Choir are on tour at various venues until 17 May;
- The latter have a headline gig at the Windmill on 6 May;
- Four bands appear at the K-music showcase on 7 May;
- Four Korean bands and one UK-ROK collaboration appear at Brighton’s Great Escape, 9-11 May;
- SF9 play the Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 12 May;
- The Opera House lunchtime recital on 13 May features tenor Konu Kim;
- BLACKPINK perform in Manchester and London, 21-22 May;
- The KCC’s House Concert on 21 May features the Aeolian String Quartet;
- Former Wonder Girl Sunmi performs at indigo at the O2, 30 May;
- The first performance in the 2019 Festival of Korean Dance features Modern Table, 31 May;
- If you haven’t got your BTS tickets for 1-2 June yet, you’re probably too late.
Everything else:
- Kim Hyesoon and Don Mee Choi appear in National Poetry Library Lates on 1 May;
- The first Korea Day in Wales is on 4 May;
- Glyn Ford and Carol Turner talk about Denuclearising the Korean Peninsula on 13 May;
- In Oxford, Irina Lyan talks about South Korea in the Post-miracle Era on 13 May;
- The launch of Korea’s Premier Collection of Classical Literature: Selections from Sŏ Kŏjŏng’s Tongmunsŏn takes place in Oxford on 14 May;
- The British Korean Society host a baduk evening on 20 May;
- The Korea Future Initiative launches a report on North Korean trafficked women on 20 May with the All Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea;
- Victoria Miro hosts a charity fundraising dinner featuring Suh Do-ho and some Korean music performance on 22 May;
- In Cambridge, the Ra Jong-yil Lecture features Professor Carter Eckert, 29 May;
- May’s Literature Night at the KCC features Yi Hyo-seok’s Endless Blue Sky;
- There’s a BTS-themed party at the O2 Academy Islington on 24 May. Other parties take place in Birmingham (5 May and 31 May), and there’s a K-pop dance workshop in London on 25 May.
Also check the upcoming events list, the Google Calendar and the Facebook Event Aggregator for updates, and let me know via the contact form if I’ve missed anything.