Mary Lynn Bracht: White Chrysanthemum Penguin Random House 2018, 320pp White Chrysanthemum, the debut novel from Mary Lynn Bracht, tells the story of two sisters, brought up on Jeju Island, who were tragically separated in the last years of the Second World War. The elder sister, Hana, is abducted into sexual slavery by a Japanese […]
UNESCO Heritage: Haenyeo
South Korea: Earth’s Hidden Wilderness – BBC2 documentary
To complement their coverage of the winter Olympics, the BBC is screening what looks like an interesting documentary covering things you might not often see in coverage of the peninsula. With plenty of Korean experts advising and behind the camera, this should be well worth a watch. South Korea – Earth’s Hidden Wilderness BBC2, 8:00pm […]
Exhibition visit: Haenyeo, Women of the Sea, at National Maritime Museum
The National Maritime Museum, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Maritime Greenwich, played host to an exhibition featuring South Korea’s latest inclusion in UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. Life-size photographs of Jeju’s famous diving women were dotted around a building which began life in 1807 as a school for the children of British seafarers. […]
Exhibition news: Haenyeo – Women of the Sea, at National Maritime Museum
Korea’s latest addition to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage register makes an appearance in Greenwich this month. Full-size portraits of Jeju’s famous diving women by Hyung S. Kim; another chance to experience Mikhail Karikis’s video and sound installation Sea Women (LKL reviews the 2012 Wapping installation of the work here); plus, if like me you […]
LEAFF 2016 focuses on Jeonju film fest
One of the strands to be introduced by the London East Asia Film Festival is a focus on individual festivals in the region. In collaboration with the Institute for Contemporary Arts, who will be screening this strand on Saturday and Sunday mornings during the festival, the focus for the first year is the Jeonju International […]
Exhibition news: Baek Kyung-sook’s donated Haenyeo photographs, at Jeju Stone Park
What has an exhibition in Jeju Stone Park got to do with the normal remit of London Korean Links? Above everything else, friendship. On my first trip to Korea back in 2001 I met the future director of Jeju Stone Park, Baek Un-cheol, who at the time was in charge of his private museum of […]
Looking back at 2013: Culture, tourism and branding stories
In the second of five articles looking back over 2013, we recall some of the tourism and heritage stories that made the news. And we also take a look at some of the stories about Korean food, given the increasing popularity of Korean cuisine of Korea. Arts and Heritage Sungnyemun, the great Namdaemun gate, reopened […]
Michael Karikis captures the other-wordly sound of the haenyo
Mikhail Karikis’s Sea Women project, installed in the Wapping Hydraulic Power Station for six weeks up to 7 July, comprised two separate but connected works. The less remarkable part was some video footage of the haenyo at work. In subject matter this was nothing that has not been seen before in other documentary films – […]
Mikhail Karikis: SeaWomen of Jejudo at The Wapping Project
The story and harsh livelihood of Jeju-do’s famous diving women have always captivated artists and documentary-makers who have come across them. From Kyung-sook Schoenman’s photo spread in National Geographic a decade or so ago, via Barbara Hammer’s documentary film “Diving Women of Jeju-do” and Brenda Paik Sunwoo’s more recent photobook “Moon Tides: Jeju Island Grannies […]
Park Kwangsu at the KCC #2: The Uprising
The attractions of today’s second screening of Park Kwang-su month include Lee Jeong-jae in period costume and a brief glimpse of Shim Eun-ha dressed as one of Jeju Island’s famous diving women. But in general people find this particular movie as dull as ditchwater. The Uprising (1999) Director: Park Kwangsu Running Time: 110 mins Date: […]
Jeju-do’s youngest Haenyeo
Jeju-do’s youngest Haenyo is poised to continue family tradition – nice to know there is at least one diver under 50 http://bit.ly/ocg3F2 #. Kim Yeon-ji (24) was born on Marado, south of Jeju-do, where there is little apart from a lighthouse and a few houses. (Image of Kim Yeon-ji sourced from Yonhap) Marado (마라도). (Source: […]
Liz Chae’s stories of the sea
Finding Iodo: The Sea Woman and the Man in Exile. Interesting project – a film featuring a poet and female diver. http://bit.ly/dQv9PS #. This follows on from Liz Chae’s previous film The Last Mermaids, about the diving women of Jeju-do.
Meeting more Mr Kims: CoolstuffKorea on Cheju Island
Jennifer Barclay, LKL contributor and author of Meeting Mr Kim, has landed herself a dream assignment for the Korean Tourism Organisation: tweet about Korea, travel round Korea, write about Korea on Facebook, generally do things we’d all like to be doing, and maybe earn a little bit of pocket money as well. Nice one, Jen. […]
Visit Korea, experience the Cold War
Coming to the Travel Channel this autumn is a new travel documentary on Korea. At the Korea Tourism evening at the KCC last week we were given a preview. It was refreshing: a Korean tourism documentary, but from a Westerner’s perspective. Yes, we were told that the KTO assisted in the film’s production, but the […]
The divers of Jeju-do
LKL digests Barbara Hammer’s documentary “Diving Women of Jeju-do”, which screened in a recent film festival in London. Barbara Hammer’s brief documentary Diving Women of Jeju-do (2007) provides an intimate portrait of Cheju-do’s famous diving women, the haenyo. Barbara Hammer goes diving with the women, and took trouble to get to know their ways. She […]
Upcoming Haenyo film screening
Notice of a screening of a documentary on Cheju Island’s famous haenyeo (해녀) in a double bill of groundbreaking documentaries by celebrated lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer, as part of the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival: For hundreds of years women on the South Korean island of Jeju-do have sustained themselves by diving to […]