My Dear Enemy

Korean Film Nights

Single, jobless and broke, 30-something Hee-soo is miserable. To get back on her feet she comes up with a plan to track down her ex, Byoung-woon, and re-claim the 3 ½ million won he owes her.
Byoung-woon is also penniless but surprisingly happy for he knows the girls who are willing to give him money. Afraid Byoung-woon may run off before clearing his debt, Hee-soo follows him as he visits many girls to borrow money, so the two ex-love birds set out on a one day journey to collect money, and memory.

KCC Multi-purpose Hall

 

Mozart Town

7pm, September 06, 2012

Multi-Purpose Hall, KCCUK

South Korean writer-director Jeon Kyu-hwan’s 2008 debut was the first in his Town Trilogy, which includes Dance Town and Animal Town (also appearing in SDFF 34) and explores the themes of urban alienation in the modern era. Mozart Town introduces us to Sara, a concert pianist visiting Seoul from Europe. She sees the city through the eyes of a tourist—everything is fresh, and as she records her travels in her journal, she feels content.

Parallel to this run the very different lives of the other characters, who are consumed by the misery they experience in the day-to-day drudgery of city life. Ji-won runs a newspaper stand and, as a hobby, photographs passersby; her husband has abandoned her and she finds more meaning in detached photographs than in real life. Etoo and Ayo are illegal immigrants from Africa; separated from their family and unable to make ends meet working at a laundry, they struggle in desperation…

Korean Film Night

7PM, May 24, 2012

Double bill: You and Me(short) + Lost and Found

Please note that the screening scheduled for the 17th has been added to the 24th’s programme.

U and Me A (2008): weight lifter So-young is in third grade of junior high and she is in the same class as Cheol-gu, who is planning to move to Australia to study there. The two teens feel uncertain about the future that they’ve chosen, but their parents just force them to go on, regardless of how they feel.

Lost and Found (2009): This film follows a trip to Chuncheon. The college student believes that she will be filled with artistic inspiration when she sleeps with the famous artist. The painter is mad at the student yet he plays along with her due to sexual temptation. The film calls it ‘bad impulse. However, the bad impulse itself is not a bad thing. That same bad impulse sometimes leads a human into the temptation of art and sometimes provides the moment of truth in the throes of lust.

Multi-Purpose Hall, KCCUK

Muse London:The 4th UK Korean Artists Exhibition

16 December 2011 – 21 January 2012

The Korean Cultural Centre UK presents the 4th Annual Exhibition of contemporary art by UK Korean Artists.

 Focusing on video works, ‘Muse London’ brings together the exciting work of six artists, all living and working in London.

 Participating artists:

Eemyun KANG, Seokyeong KANG, EE, Wonwoo LEE, Sean ROH and Kiwoun SHIN

 From 16 December 2011 to 21 January 2012 the exhibition MUSE LONDON brings a showcase of Contemporary Media Art to the KCC.

 The exhibition dwells more specifically on the artists’ interior world as seen through the lens of a foreign world city. The artworks give highly personal reports of the ‘London experience’ told through interviews, documentary snippets, exotic fantasy, paranoia and studied reflections.

 The exhibition has been guest curated by Jeremy AKERMAN and managed Ji Hye HONG (KCC UK).

 I.The participating artists for the exhibition ‘MUSE LONDON: THE 4th UK KOREAN ARTISTS EXHIBITION’ are, in alphabetical order:

 1.EE is currently studying MA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design. <Maniac> video clip presents a unique persona of this husband-and-wife duo. With the element of kitsch and pop culture of its shiny and amusing surface, EE delivers the explosion and clash in its own way of irony and humour.

  2.Eemyun KANG completed Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. She launched the interviews with artists to share diverse idea and approaches on the idea of Mystic Island in London. The video clip brings a poetic rhythm made by layers of interview. This intriguing corresponding is later developed to various forms of art. Her canvasses capture the imaged landscape that continues endlessly.   

 3.Seokyeong KANG is currently undertaking an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in London. By reshoot in the space of KCC, the mirror-like simulacrum leads the audience to come across with the ethereal traces of memory.  Her formal interest in emptiness, blank space and emotional movement is coupled with an intuitive understanding of leftovers such as leathers, threads and fabric.   

 4.Wonwoo LEE is currently studying an MA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London. His practice is concerned with spatial interventions, transforming objects and phenomenon which is related in physical and social realm. He focuses on making actual happenings that can change the given situations turned into imaginary and uncanny situations. <A drummer’s room> is stemmed from the personal experience of spatial change by occupation of sound.

 5.Sean ROH is studying an MFA in Media at Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. With his witty manipulation of ordinary objects that found in everyday life, he makes a stage of storytelling. Based on his series of photographs, the ordinary life and episodes in London is told in first point of view. Every scene speaks volume for itself.

 6.Kiwoun SHIN completed MFA Fine Art at Goldsmiths College in 2010. The visual analysis of the existence expands the his experiments from grinding to evaporating.   <Missing time never exist> and <News becomes entertainment> is a record while a cup of wine was evaporated. While he tries to emphasise and make the scenes more dramatic and theatrical with music, Kiwoun explores the political layer and visual icons of media and eventually questions the visual reality.  

 II.Guest Curator: Jeremy AKERMAN

Jeremy is an artist and editor of artists’ writing. He is an independent curator with a deep enthusiasm for Korean art in particular. <MUSE LONDON> is Jeremy’s second Exhibition at the KCC with the emerging young Korean artists.  

 III.The Korean Cultural Centre UK      

Director: WON Yonggi    

The Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK) was opened by the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in January 2008 under the aegis of the London Embassy of the Republic of Korea. The role of the KCCUK is to further enhance friendship, amity and understanding between Korea and the UK through cultural and educational activities.

 From the KCCUK's central London location near Trafalgar Square, its dedicated cultural team work to further develop cultural projects, introduce new opportunities to expand their Korean events programme in the UK, and encourage cultural exchange. Facilities at the centre include a gallery, small theatre, lecture room, a multimedia centre and library.

United Cube Concert in London

Date and Time: 5th December 2011, Doors open 17:30, Show 19:30

Place: O2 Academy Brixton

Tickets: Visit Live Nation or Ticketmaster

Cube Entertainment will hold ‘United Cube in London’ concerts starting on December 5th at the O2 Brixton Academy.

 The concert plans to show off what k-pop has to offer through the dynamic performances of 4minute, B2ST, and G.NA, through two segments, and capture the hearts of 5,000 European fans.

 O2 Brixton Academy has been the home to many legendary performances from Madonna, Bob Dylan, Marilyn Manson, Rihanna, etc. Cube artists will be the first Asian artist to perform at the facility.

  Cube Entertainment stated, “‘United Cube Concert’s venture into London, the birthplace of pop and rock, during the beginning of the Kpop movement is especially meaningful and something to be proud of… This will be an opportunity to ignite the flame of Kpop which has gone beyond the boundaries of the digital silk road.”

 Doojoon, the leader of B2ST, stated, “For all the European fans who have been waiting, we are so glad that this concert in England has been confirmed… We are already excited thinking about performing at a place where many artists that we look up to, have performed. As the starting point [of a venture into Europe], we will prepare a concert in England that will be unforgettable to everyone.”

JAPAN: Kingdom of Characters – A Talk by Hiroyuki Aihara

2 December 2011 from 6.30pm

The Japan Foundation, London
Russell Square House
10-12 Russell Square
London, WC1B 5EH

From Pokémon to Hello Kitty, a remarkable quality and range of Japanese subcultures has been sweeping the world, most notably in manga, anime, and more recently computer games. Indeed, the Japanese have long lived with this culture, nurturing a passion for the variety of characters around them.

Prior to the opening of the Japan Foundation’s exhibition, JAPAN: Kingdom of Charactersin February 2012, which will pay homage to the creation of many diverse figures since the 1950s, the Japan Foundation has invited Hiroyuki Aihara, President of the Character Research Institute and main curator of the exhibition, to explore in an illustrated talk the loving relationship between Japanese society and characters, mapping it in an historical context. The impact that such characters have had, both upon Japanese society and on global society, shall also be discussed.

This talk will provide an insight into the world of Japanese characters. Audience members are encouraged to wear or carry their favourite character as a tribute!

This talk event is organised in association with the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.
The Japan Foundation exhibition JAPAN: Kingdom of Characters will open at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, on 4th February 2012.

This event is free to attend but booking is essential. To reserve a place, please email your name and the title of the event you would like to attend to event@jpf.org.uk

Interpreting Japanese Fans

A talk by Kanji Ishizumi.

4 November 2011, 1:00 – 4:00pm

Daiwa Foundation Japan House

Organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation

People usually perceive folding fans to be implements used for the purpose of cooling oneself. Collectors of antique folding fans see them as decorative art. About one hundred years ago in the UK and Europe, most ladies carried a folding fan in their daily life as a decorative ornament. Mr Kanji Ishizumi, a sixth generation Japanese fan maker, will challenge and contradict these concepts of the fan in his presentation. He will explore the history of the folding fan, and explain how fans were actually used in Japan by monks and the aristocracy as communication tools and recording or writing instruments. In his talk, Mr Ishizumi will also discuss when, where and how folding fans were first invented, and the later development of fans as art.

Kanji Ishizumi was born in Kyoto in 1947, and belongs to the sixth generation of the Ishizumi Fan Company, which was established in 1881. He is a frequent lecturer on Japanese fans, and has given lectures at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Japan Foundation in London. Mr Ishizumi has also given lectures in New York, Los Angeles and Rome. He was invited as a keynote speaker at the North American Fan Association in California in 2011 and at the Asian Civilization Museum in Singapore.

BOOKING FORM

Related exhibition

Fan with a View, an exhibition of Nana Shiomi’s fans, will be on display at the Oriental Club on 8th November from 10am – 6pm. For more information please click here.

Image: Fan ‘Hokusai’ by Nana Shiomi MA RCA / RE (Woodcut Print / Edition of 30 / 34×58 cm approx.) © 2011 Nana Shiomi

Yoga

Yoga (2009)

October 20, 2011

Yoon Jae-yeon

Hyo-jung visits a mysterious yoga institute run by an ex-actress where her radically changed friend recommended for her to go. At the intensive training course the young yoga master, Nani, explains to Hyo-jung and four other girls that only one person can master the course and successfully discover the secret of immortal beauty.