It’s coming up to film festival season, which brings the customary diary clashes. But also watch out for tube strikes, which if I remember right torpedoed at least one of the K-Music performances last year and promise to do the same this year.
Performance
- The K-music Festival kicks off with:
- Jung Jae-il and the LSO on 1 Oct
- CelloGayageum + Dasom Baek on 6 Oct
- Groove& and DUO BUD on 19 Oct
- HAEPAARY on 24 Oct
- Sun-Mi Hong + Hyelim Kim on 1 Nov
- Kimber Lee’s Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play is on at the Young Vic all month
Film
- You should still be able to find Celine Song’s lovely Past Lives at a cinema somewhere
- On Netflix, you’ll be able to find a documentary about Bong Joon-ho’s first short film and Korea’s first cinephile generation – under the title Yellow Door: ’90s Lo-fi Film Club – from 27 Oct.
- In time for Kimjang season, Netflix adds two kimchi-related documentaries to its stable of Korean food programmes.
- The BFI London Film Fest has Kim Ji-woon’s Cobweb screening on 13 and 14 October
- The London East Asia Film Fest (18 – 29 Oct) has a Chung Ji-young focus, opening with Chung’s latest movie and closing with Korea’s entry for the 2024 Oscars. The full schedule is still dribbling out, with news of the mainstream strands yet to be announced.
- The full programme for the London Korean Film Festival (2 – 16 Nov) will be announced shortly, though some details are already known.
Exhibitions
- Today is the last day to see the Yun Hyong-keun exhibition at Hastings Contemporary and Young In Hong’s participation in Threads: Breathing stories into materials, at Bristol’s Arnolfini
- Jinjoon Lee’s Audible Garden at the KCC finishes on 13 Oct
- Jaeyeon Yoo: Dream Weaving continues at Union Gallery until 21 Oct
- Ilhwa Kim: Tactile Hands continues at HOFA Gallery until 11 Oct
- Two big art fairs back-to-back at the Saatchi Gallery are Korea-heavy: Focus Art Fair, 4 – 7 Oct and StART Art Fair, 11 – 15 Oct
- Hemyeong Kim Seong-heui has a solo show, Constellation Links, at Bonhams, 3 – 13 Oct
- A big video experience of Seoul entitled Delight opens in Borough’s Clink Street on 13 Oct, lasting for a few months
- Jisoo Jit Seo’s Six Feet Forward is at Art Space Portsmouth, 13 – 22 Oct
Special events
- New Malden hosts a Hallyu Festival on 7 October
- Hallyu Con is at Samsung KX on 14 October
- UCLan has a Korean Culture Day on 11 Oct, and Oxford has one on 14 Oct
- The Kimjang Festival comes to New Malden on 21 Oct, and we think there might be a related event the day before at Samsung KX on 20 Oct
- Various special displays and events will be held at Foyles as part of their Korean Culture Month
Classes, talks, seminars
- Hallyu Con’s final Hallyu Experience Sessions featuring different dance genres are at the KCC on 7 October
- Film Korea, which looks to be a user-friendly introduction to 30 noteworthy Korean films, is launched at the KCC on 12 Oct
- Monica Macias introduces her Black Girl from Pyongyang to Brixton Radical Readers on 13 Oct
- Cheon Myeong-kwan talks via Zoom about The Whale with Martin Colthorpe at Foyles on 14 Oct
- Illustrator Wooh Nayoung talks with Yunah Lee at Foyles on 21 Oct
- Yu Miri talks with translator Morgan Giles about her novel The End of August on 22 Oct
- Three North Korean refugees with Freedom Speakers International appear at various events – in Oxford on 20 Oct, and then London on 21 Oct (St Giles Hotel), 24 Oct (SOAS) and 25 Oct (Amnesty International). I assume they’ll also be at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea session on 24 Oct.
- On 1 November the V+A hosts a symposium on Korean Photography – History and Practices
Publications expected
- The Owl Cries by Pyun Hye-young tr Sora Kim-Russell pub Arcade Publishing
- Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum tr Shanna Tan pub Bloomsbury
- Film Korea: The Ghibliotheque guide to the wonderful world of Korean cinema by Jake Cunningham & Michael Leader pub Welbeck
- The Red Decades: Communism as Movement and Culture in Korea, 1919–1945 by Vladimir Tikhonov pub University of Hawai’i Press