The Korean Cultural Centre UK, in collaboration with CJ ENM, is pleased to present a special screening of Dear X.

Baek Ah-jin knows how to become the person others want to see.⁠
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Behind the flawless image of a top actress is someone who has learned to read and manipulate the people around her. Driven to reach the very top, Ah-jin uses others to get there — only for everything to begin to change just as she succeeds.⁠
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Adapted from a Korean webtoon, Dear X blends mystery, thriller, and romance in a psychologically charged story of ambition, deception, and the tension between image and reality.⁠

Following the screening, Diane Min, Head of European Content Sales at CJ ENM, will share some insights into the drama, followed by a short audience Q&A.

Date and Time: Friday 16 October 2026 | 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Programme

18:00 — Doors Open & Drink Reception
19:00 — Screening: Dear X
20:00 — Talk and Q&A
20:30 — Networking
21:00 — Event Close

Venue: The Garden Cinema (39–41 Parker Street, London WC2B 5PQ)

Join Sang-ah Kim and Yoojin Kwak Choi, curators of the Korea exhibition, as they explore the context, scope, themes and highlight objects of the exhibition.

Featuring outstanding examples of sculpture, painting and decorative arts over two millennia – up to the present day – the exhibition presents the most comprehensive chronological survey of Korean visual and material culture seen in Europe for over 40 years.

This major exhibition draws almost exclusively from the 23,000 works bequeathed in 2021 by the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee to the National Museum of Korea (NMK) and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA). It offers a dynamic journey through the art and material culture of the last 2,000 years. It also includes many National Treasures or Treasures, objects so designated for their exceptionally high quality and historical significance.

From ancient goldware to contemporary works of the 20th century, this talk traces 2,000 years of Korean creativity.

Sang-ah Kim has been the British Museum’s Curator for Korean collections in the Asia Department since 2021 and is the Lead Curator of Korea (1 October 2026 – 31 January 2027). She is also a contributor and editor of the accompanying publication, Korea: 2,000 years of creativity (2026).

Yoojin Kwak Choi is Project Curator of Korea (1 October 2026 – 31 January 2027). Previously, she held posts at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, including Project Curator of Hallyu! The Korean Wave (2022–23) and Assistant Curator of East Asian Collections. She researched modern and contemporary East Asian art at the Courtauld Institute and has worked as an independent curator and art historian in London and Seoul.

Ruup & Form presents Bodily Inbetweenness, the first solo gallery exhibition by London-based artist Woo Jin Joo. The exhibition brings together new and selected works spanning freehand machine embroidery, textiles, ceramics, sculpture, and drawing, developed through an extended collaboration between artist and gallery.

The exhibition unfolds as a living environment. Works are distributed throughout the space – encouraging encounters that are spatial, intimate, and responsive rather than purely observational.

At its core, the exhibition explores states of emergence and transformation. Forms appear in process rather than completion: bodies, creatures, and material gestures hover between recognition and ambiguity. These shifting presences invite attention to what Woo Jin Joo describes as “innate worlds” – internal, coexisting realities shaped through lived experience rather than separated from it.

The presentation combines recontextualised earlier works with new commissions developed for the exhibition. These include a large-scale textile piece informed by lace-making traditions, a modular series of ceramic and embroidered panels exploring formation across scales, and intimate watercolour drawings that trace creatures in mid-transformation.

Woo Jin Joo’s practice brings together folklore, shamanism, and embodied knowledge through a process she describes as “myth-making.” Rather than retelling traditional narratives, she reconstructs and reimagines them, creating new hybrid forms that sit between worlds, bodies, and states of being. This approach resonates deeply with Ruup & Form’s curatorial ethos: a commitment to research-led exhibitions, to the intelligence of making, and to supporting artists in moments of genuine experimentation and growth.

Founded on the conviction that meticulously made works can be engines of change, Ruup & Form has built a reputation for creating the conditions for risk-taking and career-shaping exhibitions. Bodily Inbetweeness exemplifies this shared commitment – an exhibition shaped through dialogue, trust, and a mutual belief in material practice as a critical language for contemporary art.

About Woo Jin Joo

Woo Jin Joo is a London-based mixed-media artist working at the intersection of textiles, sculpture, and installation. Exploring the thresholds of human perception, her practice brings together folklore, shamanism, and embodied knowledge to reimagine how transformation and meaning are understood. Through a process of myth-making, she reconstructs traditional symbols and narratives to conjure new hybrid forms that inhabit in-between spaces, inviting viewers to question what is real, what is ritual, and what lies beyond the visible.

Woo Jin has exhibited internationally, including at Untitled Art Fair Miami (2024), Saatchi Gallery (2025), Ruup & Form (2024), and Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam (2023). She is a recipient of the Cockpit Bagri Foundation Award (2023) and support from the Elephant Trust (2022), and holds an MA in Textiles from the Royal College of Art and a BA in Textiles from Central Saint Martins.

Lee Qoede is a well-known name in modern Korean art—but how much do we really know about him? Much of what we do know ends with his time as a prisoner during the Korean War and then his move to North Korea. Drawing on her book Art, War, and Exile in Modern Korea: Rethinking the Life and Work by Lee Qoede, Jinyoung Anna Jin picks up the story where it usually stops, tracing Lee’s life and work after the division of Korea.

This talk explores how Mexican muralism and socialist artistic networks offered another way of imagining modern art—one that developed alongside, and often challenged, European-centered and Cold War ideas of modernism. Following Lee beyond the familiar story reveals an unexpected map that stretches from Korea to Mexico, asking us to reconsider where modernism happened and who shaped it.

This lecture is co-hosted by SOAS East Asian Art Research Seminar Series (EAARS) and the SOAS Centre of Korean Studies.

Jinyoung Anna Jin is an art historian, curator, and author specializing in modern and contemporary Korean art within global and transnational contexts. She serves as the director of Asian art and culture at Stony Brook University’s Charles B. Wang Center, and she teaches in Asian and Asian American studies. Her research examines Cold War cultural exchanges, socialist modernism, and overlooked artistic networks linking Asia, Latin America, and beyond. Jin is also the author of Art, War, and Exile in Modern Korea: Rethinking the Life and Work of Lee Qoede (2025). Through exhibitions, publications, and film projects, she works to reconnect marginalized artists and forgotten pasts to broader world histories.

Header image: Huy Hung Trinh via Unsplash

Opening on Hangul Day, October 9, the Korean national holiday celebrating the creation of the Korean alphabet, Aggregation: The Memory of Paper & Time presents new and recent works by Chun Kwang Young (b. 1944, South Korea).

The exhibition marks a significant evolution in the artist’s decades-long exploration of memory, history, and time, with a new group of works created specifically for London incorporating Hangul, Korea’s modern writing system and a powerful symbol of Korean culture.

Chun Kwang Young is internationally recognized for his Aggregations, sculptural installations and wall reliefs comprising thousands of triangular forms wrapped in carefully folded and dyed pages of text printed on traditional Korean mulberry paper. Each form embodies fragments of distinct human experience thanks to the words that envelop them. Chun’s abstract compositions are at once organic and architectural, evoking landscapes that appear both ancient and otherworldly.

Exhibition highlights

The exhibition includes more than a dozen new Aggregations that signal a departure from Chun’s longstanding use of paper primarily sourced from antique Korean books printed in Classical Chinese characters, or Hanja. The new works shift the emphasis toward Hangul, the Korean alphabet developed in the fifteenth century.

Before Hangul, Korean government, scholarly, and literary texts were largely written using Classical Chinese characters, a complex system that did not align with the Korean spoken language and was understood only by those with a formal education. In 1446, King Sejong the Great introduced Hunminjeongeum, the new Korean alphabet, now known as Hangul. The simple, scientific system was designed to promote literacy across Korea by making reading and writing more accessible to ordinary people.

The principles behind Hangul’s creation were documented in historical texts, and in his new works, Chun incorporates these important texts, printing them onto traditional Korean mulberry paper, also known as hanji, handcrafted by a hanji artisan. By giving greater prominence to Hangul, Chun imbues a layer of contemporary Korean identity into his Aggregations while retaining language as a formal element. “This is not simply a change of text,” he says. “It’s a conceptual shift from accumulating the records of the past toward creating and accumulating the living time of the present.”

Somerset House Studios turns 10 with three nights of experiments in performance and technology at East London’s Wapping Hydraulic Power Station. A three-night event and international transmission, 3 Evenings takes Somerset House Studios’ distinctive approach to interdisciplinary experimentation beyond the Somerset House walls with three different live performance experiments each night, set within a wider programme of newly commissioned works and interactive installations.

Across all three nights of 3 Evenings, audiences can experience world premieres of newly commissioned interactive installations from Ayoung Kim, Xin Liu and Keiken alongside a reimagined work from Louis Morlæ. 3 Evenings is a playful reimagining of the 1966 event 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, considered a pivotal moment in the history of artists working with new technologies. A three-night event and international transmission, it will bring Somerset House Studios’ distinctive approach to interdisciplinary experimentation offsite to east London’s Wapping Hydraulic Power Station.

3ETV, an interactive TV channel and evolving digital artwork broadcasting beyond the live event, will extend the project online, in partnership with HEK (House of Electronic Arts, Basel), M+ (Hong Kong), Onassis ONX (Athens/New York) & Pioneer Works (New York).

3 Evenings is supported by Glass Castle Foundation.

Ayoung Kim

The world premiere of this new commission from Ayoung Kim, expanding the world of Delivery Dancer into multiple game formats. An artist at the forefront of digital innovation, Kim uses generative AI, videogame engines and live-action footage to create narratives that collide biopolitics, geopolitics, synthesize mythologies and interrogate technologies. Her Delivery Dancers series follows two female delivery drivers (or Dancers) as they pursue never-ending delivery work, under the control of a master AI algorithm called Dancemaster.

For 3 Evenings, Kim debuts a new playable video game for an intimate audience, the game relayed to all screens throughout the venue at fixed moments each night. An online version will be released on Channel, Somerset House’s online commissioning space, in February 2027.

Ayoung Kim’s work, PH Express (2011), is also featured in the group exhibition The Unclassified at the Korean Cultural Centre UK, London, from 25 September to 31 December 2026.

Ayoung Kim’s installation is co-commissioned by Somerset House Studios, Canyon (NYC) and Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam). The presentation at 3 Evenings is supported by the Korean Cultural Centre UK.

Ayoung Kim lives and works in Seoul, Korea. Kim weaves reality anew through a tapestry of hybrid narratives, integrating geopolitics, mythology, technology, technoprecarity, and speculative temporalities into her work. Kim often depicts nonconformists or technoprecarious entities whose resistance or misalignment leaves behind strange and singular traces as they deviate from prescribed trajectories. Kim’s synthesized narratives result in far-reaching speculation, establishing connections between biopolitics and border controls, the memories of stones and virtual memories, and ancestral origins and imminent futures across various media. Her practice incorporates discourses on optical and post-optical media, performativity, game simulation, and the narrativity of fiction. Her interest in synthesis, hybridization, and the coexistence of heterogeneous time led to an interest in all kinds of intersections, transfers, transpositions, and interchanges of time, space, structure, and syntax.

Xin Liu: nom nom

Drawing on Neural Cellular Automata, a computational model inspired by biological growth, nom nom is an interactive installation exploring how complexity can emerge from simple rules. Rather than representing an existing ecosystem, the work constructs a world in real time, where landscapes and inhabitants develop through the collective behaviour of countless interconnected agents.

The audience interacts with an artificial world composed of millions of particles. Across a large-scale LED surface, patterns emerge, dissolve and reform, tracing the continuous evolution of a landscape generated through local interactions between microscopic agents.

Keiken: Liquid Perception

Using a new embodied empathy technology, Liquid Perception employs light-based sensors, headphones and haptic devices to facilitate non-verbal communication. Within its relational, non-verbal empathy interface, participants encounter and inhabit new perceptual worlds.

Guided by way-finding paths through the space, audiences move through a series of encounters in which individual actions influence the experience of others, creating a collective perceptual environment that is continually shifting and reconfigured.

Louis Morlæ: Euphoria Rover (Moonlighting)

Morlæ’s Euphoria Rover takes its cue from the industrial design of autonomous rovers and self-driving machines, featuring multi-terrain wheel sets, protective grills, beacon lights and weather sensors. Caught between forward-thinking machine, nomadic rave-bot and gormless AI pet, Morlæ’s mobile sculpture animates questions of automation and human-digital interfaces with humour and absurdity.

Originally commissioned for Bold Tendencies’ 2026 Euphoria programme, the rover makes its journey to Wapping, periodically roaming the power station’s courtyard under its newly assumed role as venue janitor – the computerised vehicle monitoring 3 Evenings’ rubbish disposal alongside its team of co-workers-come-handlers, performed by Morlae and fellow Studios resident John Costi.

Capturing wind speed and solar energy, Euphoria Rover emits an ‘animative’ score modulated in real-time by surrounding weather conditions. The soundscape is composed in collaboration with Somerset House Studios artist felicita, and executed in partnership with technology start-up and AI-driven audio engine bronze.ai.

A special screening and conversation exploring K-drama, from screen to global audiences.

The Korean Cultural Centre UK, in collaboration with CJ ENM, is pleased to present a special screening of the K-drama Bon Appétit, Your Majesty.

The series follows Yeon Ji-young, a chef who unexpectedly travels 500 years into the past, where an encounter with the king leads to her appointment as his royal chef. Blending time travel, royal court drama and cuisine, Bon Appétit, Your Majesty brings a playful contemporary twist to the historical K-drama.

Following the screening, Director Chang Tae You will be joined by Sehee Jang, Head of Business Development at CJ ENM, and Ed Waller, Editorial Director at C21Media, for a conversation exploring the drama’s development and production, as well as the creative process behind bringing the story to screen. The discussion will also look at the wider Korean content industry and the growing international reach of K-drama.

Special Screening & Guest Talk — Auditorium

6:00 PM — Doors Open
6:30 PM — Screening: BON APPÉTIT, YOUR MAJESTY
7:45 PM — Guest Talk

Networking Reception — Vaults 1

8:20 PM — Doors Open
8:30 PM — Networking Reception
10:00 PM — Event Close

Venue: RSA House, The Royal Society of Arts (8 John Adam Street, London WC2N 6EZ)

The Korean Cultural Centre UK, in collaboration with CJ ENM, is pleased to present a special screening of the Korean drama The Ordinary Jackpot (로또 1등도 출근합니다).

The series follows Eun-tae, an ordinary office worker worn down by the routines of work, relationships and everyday life. When he unexpectedly wins 1.3 billion won in the lottery, the money may not be enough to completely transform his life, but it gives him a new sense of security. Choosing to carry on much as before, Eun-tae begins to approach his everyday life with a subtly different mindset.

Following the screening, Diane Min, Head of European Content Sales at CJ ENM, and Trang Nguyen of K7 Media will come together for a conversation on the global growth of K-drama and the evolving landscape of Korean content worldwide. Drawing on their perspectives across international content distribution and media research, they will explore how distinctly Korean stories and themes connect with audiences across cultures and markets.

Evolution of Migration (이민의 진화, 서울: 푸른숲, 2025) introduces the last 150 years’ history of Korean migration to Australia. It discovers the first Korean immigrant in Australia, John Corea who landed in Australia in 1876, and the first Korean international student, Kim Ho Yul who studied in Melbourne in 1921-1924.

The book covers various types of migration such as onward chain, shuttle and return migration and carries stories of contemporary Korean migrants including working-holiday makers. The author travels around the Australian outback to investigate young Korean labour migrants in the late 19th century pre-federation British colony in Australia until today.

The author, Jay Song (송지영) is honorary associate professor at the Australian National University. Prior to her current affiliation, she was Korea Foundation associate professor at the University of Melbourne to set up the Korean Studies programme and the Korean Studies Research Hub (2017-2023). Besides her academic career, she also held various positions in government, think tanks and the UN in Seoul, London, Sydney and Geneva. She’s now based in Murrumbateman, rural New South Wales, Australia, raising alpacas and writing about Asian migration and race issues in Australia.

Su Scott visits Foyles to celebrate her cookery book ‘Pocha’

Su Scott is a Korean food writer and author based in London. Her first book, Rice Table (Quadrille, 2023), was shortlisted for Best First Book at the Guild of Food Writers Awards, and her latest title, POCHA: Simple Korean Food from the Streets of Seoul (Quadrille, 2024), was shortlisted for Best Cookery Book at Fortnum and Mason Awards 2025. She has contributed recipes and features to publications including Waitrose Food, BBC Food, and Condé Nast Traveler New York. She writes the weekly Substack newsletter Simple Supper, where she shares intimate, observational essays about family, food, motherhood, migration and the changing meaning of home.

Pocha; short for pojangmacha, which literally translates as ‘covered wagon’; pocha is a tented or tarpaulin-covered stall, bar or market vendor serving up cheap and unfussy Korean comfort food, snacks and drinks.

In Pocha, Su Scott is going home to the streets where she grew up and the food that shaped her. From daybreak to sundown, 80 delicious and playful recipes take you on a journey through the narrow streets of Seoul and sheltered halls of tarpaulin-roofed markets where dust motes and steam glitter in the glow of orange tungsten lights.

Filled with vibrant location photography from Seoul that weaves a tale of Su’s touching return to her home country, Pocha is an electric and tender cookbook.

The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and book signing. Your ticket includes a complimentary glass of wine.

Sohn Won-Pyung visits Foyles to discuss her books ‘Almond’ and ‘Counterattacks at Thirty’ with Ela Lee

Sohn Won-Pyung studied sociology and philosophy at Sogang University before studying film directing at the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA). Her debut novel, Almond, won the 10th Changbi Prize for Young Adult Fiction and has since been translated and published in more than 30 countries, including the UK and the US. She is the author of the novels Counterattacks at Thirty, Prism and Tube, the short story collection The House of Others, and the children’s book series The Mighty Fox Tail. She also wrote and directed the feature film Intruder. Her honours include the Cine21 Film Criticism Award, the Jeju 4·3 Peace Literary Prize and the Japan Booksellers’ Award. Her fifth novel, The Land of Youth, set in a near future shaped by declining birth rates and an ageing population, explores the lives of young adults navigating a rapidly changing society and is slated for publication in English by HarperVia.

Ela Lee, the writer of Minbak, will chair the event with Sohn Won-Pyung.

The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and book signing. Your ticket includes a complimentary glass of wine.

Kim Cho-Yeop visits Foyles to discuss her work as a South Korean science fiction writer, with Barry Pierce

Kim Choyeop is a South Korean science fiction writer. She studied chemistry at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology), where she went on to earn a master’s degree in biochemistry. She made her literary debut in 2017, winning the Grand Prize in the novella and short story category of the 2nd Korea Science Literature Award for “관내분실”, as well as an Honourable Mention at the same awards. Her debut short story collection, If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light, won the 43rd Today’s Writer Award in 2019, and her short story Cognitive Space received the 11th Young Writers Award in 2020. Her published works include If We Cannot Move at the Speed of Light and “원통 안의 소녀” (The Girl in the Cylinder).

Barry Pierce is a critic and culture writer whose work has appeared in the Sunday Times, the Big Issue, i-D, GQ, and British Vogue. He regularly chairs discussions at venues across London, including Foyles, the Southbank Centre and the British Library, as well as at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. He has also contributed to documentaries produced by RTÉ and BBC Radio.

The discussion will be followed by an audience Q&A and book signing. Your ticket includes a complimentary glass of wine.