“This is not a Korean exhibition” announced Lee Chan-Buom, Director of the Cultural Cooperation Division of Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade as he introduced the panellists at a fascinating discussion to coincide with the “Blight and Hope” exhibition at the KCC. With sponsorship from the British Council and the UNDP, there was to … [Read More]
Category: Event reports and reviews (page 45)
The Birth of the YKABs (Young Korean Artists in Britain)!
‘4482: Korean Contemporary Artists London’ exhibition, 16th – 19th October. Seminar, ‘How to promote Korean Art Abroad,’ 18th October 2008. Both at Bargehouse, Southwark. Report by Beccy Kennedy Take forty contemporary artists, a fervent independent curator, an unexpected art space, four floors of art works in throngs of media and genres, and a thriving spot … [Read More]
A week is a long time in … Korean economics
By Peter Corbishley Given the present economic world order, last week was an opportune time for an update on Korean peninsular economics. First Aidan Foster Carter tells BAKS that in August President Lee Myung-bak’s military banned “Bad Samaritans,” by Chang Ha-joon, an economics professor at the University of Cambridge, for being un-Korean. Then on the … [Read More]
“Disposable People”: Comfort Women photos at the Festival Hall
Overlapping nicely with the photographic exhibition at the KCC (Poverty seen through the Lens) is Disposable People, an exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall on a related theme: modern day slavery. Magnum photographer Chris Steele Perkins spent some time talking with some of the last surviving sex slaves from the Pacific War – the Korean … [Read More]
Crowning glory at the Smile of Buddha
Matthew Jackson reports from the “Smile of Buddha” exhibition in Brussels I had never been to the Bozar Centre (French: “Palais des Beaux-Arts”) in Belgium prior to the current “Smile of Buddha” exhibition of Korean Buddhist art. It is an impressive place (right) and I highly recommend it if you are ever in Brussels. The … [Read More]
Pansori and bibimbap – fusion in Korea’s cultural content
By Peter Corbishley Last Thursday and Friday 24-25th September an itinerant band of Pansori sellers displayed their wares at the Korean Cultural Centre (KCC) and the School of Advanced Study, University of London. The main event was Yonsei University’s (Institute of Media Art) Jeong Taeg Lim and Jung A Huh’s talk on ‘The Aesthetic modernity … [Read More]
Chuseok in Chessington
The King’s Centre was opened last year by Cliff Richard. It’s a multi-purpose venue in Chessington designed for the local community, with facilities for business meetings, conferences and sporting activities. The main users of the space are the Chessington evangelical church. But last Saturday evening there was a multicultural audience of Korean and Korean-British families, … [Read More]
Catch Na Hong-jin’s Chaser while you can!
Saharial advises you to go see The Chaser on the big screen while you can. I was delighted when I discovered, at long last, a Korean film showing again in a city centre cinema, something that seems very rare these days. The basic story that I knew before I went in, was that it concerned … [Read More]
Korea at the Thames Festival 1 – Jump! and Last For One
By Saharial Looking out at the rather dull day I am having today, it would be hard for me to believe that the weekend was full of summer sunshine if I hadn’t got a little toasted at the Thames Festival on Saturday. After a long walk from St Pancras to Waterloo and then a nice … [Read More]
Korea at the Thames Festival 2 – Stick Throwing and Kimchi Pancakes
By Matthew Jackson The Korean section of the Thames Festival 2008 was bigger, more spectacular and altogether more chaotic than the ‘Sarangbang’ of last year. When I showed up on the Saturday afternoon, I was introduced to a traditional Korean game which involved throwing sticks at a target, as one of the sticks narrowly avoided … [Read More]
BAKS conference report: looking forward / looking back
The 2008 BAKS conference at Clare College Cambridge started and finished with talks with a distinctly global flavour. People came from the four corners of the globe, with presenters from New Zealand, Singapore, Hawaii, Germany and the US. And we were also fortunate to have the support of the ROK ambassador, Chun Young-woo, plus the … [Read More]
English church, Korean choir, great concert
What is aural image is conjured up when you hear of a Civic Chorale? Perhaps a worthy amateur choral society, used to performing madrigals with rather too many singers and too much vibrato, plodding through an annual Messiah at Easter time? Think again when it comes to the Suwon Civic Chorale. This forty-strong choir from … [Read More]
B-boys promote Korean tourism at KCC
It’s now more than a year since the somewhat controversial launch of the Korea, Sparkling tourism brand. As I suspected at the time, people would get used to it in due course, and now the logo has become a familiar feature on the various tourist literature available. The branding, together with the Han Style campaign … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Free Words at Mayfair Public Library
When I went to the Free Words exhibition at Mayfair Public Library it was a grey Friday evening, and consequently did not see the works at their best. It was the last day of the main show, and the artwork seemed to have been forgotten in a rather drab-feeling, unloved public-sector space on the top … [Read More]
Suh Do-ho in Psycho Buildings
Psycho Buildings is a cosmopolitan collaboration in which artists from as far afield as Tokyo and Cuba “take on” architecture. Suh Do-ho (right) is one of the diaspora of Korean artists working in various countries around the world. Like Baik Nam June, Suh has chosen to make his home in America. Suh’s work has in … [Read More]
Official photos from the Dano festival
Justina Jang of the Korean Cultural Promotion Agency, the organisers of the Dano Festival in Trafalgar Square, has kindly sent me some of the official photos of the event, which I have now uploaded to Flickr. Some good photos of the very entertaining Noridan (above), some great crowd scenes which really convey the atmosphere of … [Read More]