June turned out to be extremely busy, but in July we seem to be winding down for the summer. Undoubtedly the highlight for LKL is Leenalchi’s UK tour, coming to the Coronet at the beginning of the month and moving on to Manchester and Glasgow. K-pop fans can look forward to Stray Kids performing at Tottenham Hotspur stadium in the middle of the month. And there’s plenty of new books for your summer reading list.
Live performance
- Your last chance to catch Kim’s Convenience is at the Birmingham Rep, 1-5 July
- You can catch Japanese Breakfast in Bristol on 1 July and Brixton on 3 July
- There are live performances from the Seocho Philharmonia and others in Kingston on 4 July and 5 July to commemorate 80 years since the end of WW2 and liberation of Korea. The Little Angels will be appearing in these events and while they’re over here they’re performing at a Unification Church event on 6 July.
- Leenalchi perform at the Coronet Theatre on 4 and 5 July, followed by Manchester (8 July) and Glasgow (9 July)
- 8TURN perform in Islington, 13 July
- Stray Kids play at Spurs, 18 & 19 July
Screenings
- The Birkbeck-curated series of screenings at the KCC concludes with Women’s Oral Histories on 2 July and Writing Poems at the End of the World on 9 July
- Netflix is now screening series 3 of Squid Game, if you’re still following it. And apparently the musical KPop Demon Hunters is proving popular on the same platform
- The KCC is screening a performance of Shim Chung by the Universal Ballet Company, 3 July
Exhibitions
- Suh Do Ho’s Walk the House is at Tate Modern all month
- Lee Myungho’s (no)thing is at Gallery KIWA until 19 July
- Ga Kook-hyun’s Sensible Still Life is at Mokspace until 21 July
- Endless Bonds: AI and Korean Heritage opens on 17 July at the KCC
Everything else
- There’s an artist talk and performance with Haedong Lee at the KCC on 1 July
- The British Korean Society collaborates with Chatham House in the conversation How should Britain build influence and impact on the Korean Peninsula? on 2 July
- Kollab & Kulture focus on Kpop dance at the Poplar Union on 4 July
- There’s a KPOP & HIPHOP night in Vauxhall on 4 July
- There’s a Cambridge Korea Day on 12 July
- Hyelim Kim makes an appearance at Ura Matsuri 2025 in the Festival Hall foyer, 19 July
Books expected in July
Fiction:
- Blowfish, by Jo Kyung-ran tr Kim Chi-young pub Astra House
- Chinatown, by Oh Jung-hee tr Bruce and Ju-chan Fulton pub Penguin
- A Twist of Fate, by Jang Se-ah tr S L Park pub Bantam Press
- Hakuda Photo Studio, by Her Tae Yeon tr Shanna Tan pub John Murray
Non-fiction:
- Korean Culture in the Global Age: K-Pop, K-Drama, K-Film, and K-Literature, ed Joanne Miyang Cho and Lee M. Roberts pub Routledge
- The Sensational Proletarian: Leftist Cultures in Colonial Korea, by Kimberly Chung pub Stanford University Press
- Rebranding North Korea: Changes in Consumer Culture and Visual Media, by Immanuel Kim pub University of Hawai’i Press