I haven’t had a chance to write anything yet – that will come in the next couple of days – but in the meanwhile I’ve uploaded my snaps onto my flickr page. Let me know of any other photos you wish to share. [Read More]
Category: Event reports and reviews (page 50)
Rags in the Wind – some photos
Here are some photos from Rags in the Wind – a group show in the Graz Botanical gardens, on now. It’s featured here because it includes the work of London-based, Korean-born artist Francesca Cho. Her “Floating Soul 1” is below: View a slideshow of the complete set here. The set includes a couple of shots … [Read More]
Jung at Heart – a review of the Korean exhibition Eo Ulim
Beccy Kennedy reviews an exhibition of Korean artists in Finchley, North London, September 2007, and interviews two of the artists. Work by Jung-mi Bae, Chul-won Kwak and Sang-yoon Yoon. [Read More]
Embroidery, celadon and a Juche paradise opposite the Institute of Directors
The exhibition at La Galleria is entering its last two weeks. A number of the artworks that were in the gallery last time I visited are no longer there, having found good homes (1), and the opportunity has been taken to move some of the pictures around to give more prominents positions to some artists … [Read More]
The Grand Culture Project
At the SOAS / AKS conference on 26 June, the talk by Kim Hyeon, Associate Professor of Cultural Informatics at the Academy of Korean Studies, had the title “the Korean Wave, Cultural Content and Cultural Informatics”. “What on earth is Cultural Informatics?” I hear you ask. You would not be alone. But read on. The … [Read More]
Growing interest in DPRK art show
The North Korean art exhibition in Pall Mall is gathering momentum. A small-scale re-hang has seen more propaganda posters in the window facing the Institute of Directors (above), which encourages passing traffic. The jewel painting is now hung so that pedestrians in the Royal Opera Arcade get greeted by it. The big painting of the … [Read More]
A North Korean coup, years in the planning
Prologue The North Korean flag stirred gently in the breeze in Pall Mall, the heart of London’s clubland, a few hundred yards from Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. An elderly gentleman pottered up the steps to the Athenaeum. The blue and red flag caught his eye, but its significance did not register. A young woman … [Read More]
Last chance to see Oh Tae Seok’s masterpiece
The enigmatically titled Bicycle finishes this weekend. The play is performed by a western cast, in the English translation by Kim Ah-jeong and RB Graves, in Camden People’s Theatre, an intimate space (audience capacity around 40 I would reckon) near Euston Station. Oh Tae-Seok is known for making the audience work, skipping parts of the … [Read More]
Review: Korean traditional dance at Asia House
Peter Corbishley reports on last week’s dance event at Asia House Thanks to some unusual traffic your reviewer arrived late enough to get a front row seat for this unique performance of seven of eleven traditional Korean dances. ‘Exciting’, ‘beautiful’, ‘unexplored but most interesting’ were some of the words and phrases used to introduce this … [Read More]
Exhibition visit: Artists, Art and Culture of D. P. R. Korea
By Susan Pares For what is said to be the first time, the arts of North Korea hit the London gallery scene. North Korean contemporary art can be viewed periodically at the Korea Gallery of the British Museum, but this exhibition offers the chance for larger exposure to media and themes that are typical of … [Read More]
Rain on the Parade — Kingston’s Mud Festival
Jennifer Barclay’s account of Kingston’s answer to the Boryeong Mud Festival Where else on a wet Saturday in June would you get classical dance, freestyle football and women arm-wrestling? But no-one I asked in Kingston-upon-Thames knew where Fairfield Recreation Ground was. Signs might even have attracted the curious. Eventually I got directions from a policewoman, … [Read More]
Korea, fizzling – a rather less than sparkling brand launch
An unruly mob of louts and freeloaders from the travel and journalism trade gathered on the top floor of New Zealand House yesterday evening to honour the launch of the “Korea, Sparkling” tourism brand. When it had been launched so successfully down below in Trafalgar Square not two weeks beforehand, some of us wondered why … [Read More]
More pictures from the 2007 Dano festival in Trafalgar Square
Many thanks to Katie, Mark and Sung-min for letting me use their pictures of the Dano festival last Sunday. Mark has uploaded a full set of his photos over at the Korean Language Meetup site. Go visit the gallery – there are some other good photos over there too. I’ll also be asking people to … [Read More]
New report presents evidence of crimes against humanity
Christian Solidarity Worldwide yesterday launched a new report, seven years in the making, which concluded that there is a prima facie case that the DPRK regime is guilty of crimes against humanity. The report has had input from lawyers familiar with the international human rights regime and is based, inter alia, on interviews with 80 … [Read More]
Rivers dance for Dano
A roving reporter’s account of yesterday’s Trafalgar Square Dano festivities by Jennifer Barclay with photos mostly by Jeon Sung-min (photo of the b-boys by Katie) It was a grey day on Sunday 17 June; but I donned a slightly sparkling T-shirt and set out for Trafalgar Square for the first ‘Korea, Sparkling’ Dano festival to … [Read More]
Sejong Soloists at the Cadogan Hall: what live music is all about
Sejong Soloists: Three Moments in Time – Cadogan Hall, Sunday 10 June Go along to a standard orchestral concert, and what do you see? Ranks of musicians sitting inertly and gazing intently at their music stands. The baton is maybe a flash of white just visible in the corner of their eye, but from the … [Read More]