myKOREA with Jo Yoon-Seo

As part of our myKOREA series, we’ll be asking someone on the local scene to share their journey through Korean culture by naming their favourite musicians, movies, and artists. We’ll also be asking them to tell us about one more thing of their choosing.

Yoon was born in Seoul but left Korea when she was three years old. After spending some time in Hong Kong and the USA, she returned to Korea in 2018. She is now booking bands for legendary live music venue and Platform Magazine’s spiritual home, Pet Sounds.

Follow Yoon on Instagram at @copgraveyard.

Music: BYUL.ORG

I was born in Seoul, but my family left Korea when I was three. We lived abroad in Hong Kong and the United States for about 16 years. When I first came back to Seoul, I didn't know anybody here except for my family members. I spent the better part of 2 years holed up in my room, watching movies or listening to music.

I've always been attracted to music based on how it makes me feel more than any specific objective quality. When I found Universal Factory by Byul.org while going down some YouTube rabbit hole, it was like a perfect portrayal of how I'd been feeling after my return to Korea. It sounds like being half-drunk in the subway station by yourself, watching the last train leave in front of your eyes.

Universal Factory is from an album called Secret Stories Heard From A Girl Of An Opium Den; they have a lot of eccentric song titles. I actually had the chance to see Byul.org at Channel 1969 this past year, and it was such an intimate and warm experience.

Movie: TAKE CARE OF MY CAT

It's really funny, but Byul.org did the soundtrack for this movie. I had no idea until I went to see a re-release screening, but it was obvious once I heard the soundtrack.

This movie has a huge place in my heart not only because it was the first movie I ever watched at Artnine, my favourite cinema, but also because it has such a realistic portrayal of female friendships, the uncertainty of shifting into adulthood, and the reality of the various problems, personal and societal, thrown at you as you navigate through your life. These girls are flawed, but they love each other the best they can, in their own way. There are some truly devastating moments in this movie, but somehow it still maintains a faint glimmer of hope. Unconventional, maybe, but a comfort movie to me nonetheless. And it never hurts to have a cute cat.

Art: HAN YOSUL

According to their own description, Han Yosul "shoots fantasies," and that's exactly what their photos look like: segments of dreams. Han's use of colour and lighting is captivating. They explains their work like this: "Last night I dreamt I was taking pictures, I used my eyeballs like lenses and tightened the aperture, and if I blinked my eyelids it would take a photo / I was glad / How great would it be if you could capture subjects the way your eyes do / People who see fantasies would photograph fantasies." Ethereal, hazy, dreamy, neon attempts to photograph the fantastical.

One more thing: O2 BY KIM SAGWA

Kim Sagwa is my all-time favourite Korean author. She has an incredibly keen awareness of the intricacies and complex dynamics of Korean society and doesn't shy away from dissecting them in graphic detail. Her collection of short stories, 02, is full of violence and the smell of blood-- the stories share a common theme of fear, a fear that gives way to an unknowable, unrelenting rage. It is a fear of everything; of the world around you, of life itself, of a world where things that should never happen end up happening every day. Fear of "everyone else, their eyes paralysed with fear"; fear of seeing yourself reflected in their eyes.

The world these characters live in can be described as "schizophrenic," induced by the oppressive violence of the system the characters have no choice but to live in. They huff superglue, eat tubes of gochujang, and keep bodies in their apartment… it's a lawless wasteland, and it's a fascinating commentary on the (often quite ugly) reality that hides behind the perfectly curated mask of modern Korean society. Kim's despair that this flawed system has no hope for change or escape is palpable, and that's what makes this book so memorable.