London Korean Links

Covering things Korean in London and beyond since 2006

Peace initiatives of the Moon Jae-in administration in Korea: their legacy

The Cambridge Centre for Geopolitics presents an informal lecture by Professor Jong Kun Choi, who will delve into his firsthand experiences during the period of 2017 to 2022 when the Moon Jae In Administration actively pursued peace making policies on the Korean Peninsula. This included negotiations with North Korea and facilitating the talks between the … [Read More]

Lunar New Year with Connect: North Korea

Connect: North Korea is hosting a Lunar New Year event with classical musician and North Korean escapee Emily Yeyoung to celebrate this very special holiday. Join us for drinks, canapés, Emily’s fantastic performance, and a Q&A about her journey from North Korea to the UK. There are only 25 tickets available for this event! Don’t … [Read More]

SOAS seminar: An Atomic Age Unleashed

This presentation explores the common culture of Cold War scientism and atomic developmentalism in early North and South Korea. While tens of thousands of Koreans were subject to the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, early peninsular analysis of the bombings rarely grappled with the existence of these individuals. The general exclusion of colonial subjects … [Read More]

[Manchester] Jane Jin Kaisen: Community of Parting screenings

Community of Parting (2019) traces a different approach to borders, translation, and aesthetic mediation by invoking the ancient shamanic myth of the Abandoned Princess Bari and engaging female Korean shamanism as an ethics and aesthetics of memory and mutual recognition across time and space. Rooted in oral storytelling and embodied by female shamans, the myth about … [Read More]

Seminar: AI and Humanity

The KCC is pleased to announce an in-person talk about the AI and Humanity with Shinseungback Kimyounghun. The seminar will feature the media artist group, Shin Seung-baek and Kim Yong-hoon, who have been exploring and examining the direct impact of technology on human life and the essence of it. The artists will showcase their works … [Read More]

From Porcelain to Palaces – A Journey Through the Cultural Heritage of the Joseon Dynasty

This session explores the cultural heritage of the Joseon Dynasty – a time that witnessed the flourishing of the arts. The dynasty was built on Confucian teaching and this led to new iconographical traditions and aesthetic preferences. The royal family’s patronage of art gave rise to great cultural achievements, artistic innovation and technological advancement. This … [Read More]

Exploring Korea’s Sartorial Heritage Through Hanbok

In celebration of the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom, this lecture highlights pivotal moments of cultural convergence, underlining the transformation of hanbok into an iconic emblem of Korean heritage since 1883. Hanbok, which used to be everyday wear for Koreans, has evolved significantly over time. Notably, the … [Read More]

Seminar: Drawing Action Heroes in the Digital Age

Wooh Nayoung is an illustrator known for painting western characters wearing hanbok, Korea’s traditional clothing and taking old Korean genre paintings and reinterpreting them with a modern twist. Due to popular demand, following Wooh Nayoung’s recent Q&A at Foyles, we will be presenting a whole K-Seminar with the illustrator at the Korean Cultural Centre UK. … [Read More]

Book Talk – Black Girl from Pyongyang

Join author Monica Macias as she explores extraordinary true story of a West African girl’s upbringing in North Korea under the guardianship of President Kim Il Sung in conversation with Jim Hoare. In 1979, aged only seven, Monica Macias was sent from West Africa to the unfamiliar surroundings of North Korea by her father, the … [Read More]

Cairo Declaration and Korean service in British army commemorated in SOAS conference

Hands up, anyone who had actually heard of the Cairo Declaration before this SOAS conference designed to mark its 80th anniversary? I certainly hadn’t. Winston Churchill was in Cairo with a contingent of over 100 diplomatic and administrative staff, in late November 1943, where along with Chang Kai-shek and President Roosevelt they were starting to … [Read More]