Thankfully, a reasonably quiet start to the New Year – and new decade. The KCC hasn’t yet announced its first season of film nights for the year – but in the past couple of years, if I recall right, those haven’t started until February anyway. But don’t miss their showcase of the Lady Hyegyong Uigwe.
Headline events this month are the BTS conference in Kingston, the Unsuk Chin premiere in Birmingham, Park Jiha at LSO St Lukes and Y Dance at The Place. And for K-pop fans, Day6 hit the Brixton Academy.
At the time of writing, there’s still a couple of tickets left for the Parasite preview with director Q+A at the Curzon Mayfair on 3 Feb.
With that introduction over, here are the events we know about:
Conferences, talks and seminars
- BTS: A Global Interdisciplinary Conference Project is at Kingston University, 4-5 January
- The KCC hosts a talk, BTS: Fandom Culture in the age of New Media, on 6 January
- City University of London a Korean Human Rights seminar on 16 January
- SOAS kicks off the new year with two seminars: Geospatial Mapping in DPRK Human Rights Monitoring (17 Jan) and The Zainichi Korean Question (24 Jan)
Music and performance
- Day6’s Gravity world tour comes to the Brixton Academy on 12 January
- Y Dance perform their new work Hyper Hygienic at The Place as part of Resolution 2020, 23 January
- The CBSO premieres Unsuk Chin’s new Concerto for Orchestra on 30 January in Birmingham Symphony Hall
- Park Jiha plays LSO St Lukes in a double bill with Wacław Zimpel on 31 January
Exhibitions
- Shinuk Suh’s Man(u)fractured is at Unit 1 Gallery | Workshop until 11 January
- Lee Jungwoong’s Brush and Blue Abstraction is at Pontone Gallery until 19 January
- The KCC’s media showcase of Lady Hyegyong’s 60th anniversary Uigwe runs 9 – 22 January
- The KCC also hosts their artist of the year exhibition by Kang Jungsuck into February
- Joo Yeon Park’s Library of the Unword is at the National Poetry Library until the end of March
- Nam June Paik: The Future is Now continues at Tate Modern into February
- Suh Do-ho’s installation is still in the City, until the end of March
Social, and everything else
- The BKS Diners celebrate Seollal on 20 January
- Connect North Korea host a Seollal event with North Korean exiles on 23 January
- The Windmill Brixton hosts a K-town music night on 8 January
- The Prince Charles Cinema is getting into the spirit of the movie awards season by presenting two Bong Joon-ho films: The Host (13 Jan) and Mother (22 Jan)
- Other social events / k-pop-themed parties can be found on LKL’s Facebook event aggregator.
Let me know what I’ve missed via the event submission form.