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Expat culture connectsSource |
2008/12/02 | 192 views | Permalink | 0 comments |
Seoul is traditionally the center of expat activity, but this year Daegu has pitched in with some exhibitions of its own.In September, Club:That turned its upper floors into a gallery for the second of a two-part event hosting work by more than 60 expats and Koreans. "It was a great turn out", said Scott Fusion, who runs Club:That and founded Blank Canvas Entertainment. "In four days, we had about 1,000 people walk through and at the closing party there were about 300 people out to celebrate art in Daegu". The show was a joint project between Blank Canvas, and Eddie Pye, Daegu representative of expat artist network 3c World (Open the link). But it might not have been the event it was if an Englishman in Bucheon hadn't had trouble finding a camera. Last July Peter Orange was looking to make a short film here, but he needed to find crew and equipment. A journalist helped him gatecrash the Bucheon Fantastic Film Festival, but he found the local film industry exceptionally fragile, despite is good reputation, and its elite to be a small group. He asked for directories of crew and equipment, but was told there were none. "If I were a foreign production company arriving in Korea to make a film commercial, I'd say the entire industry was completely inaccessible", says Orange. "During the festival I met up with some foreign film directors, who were invited to the festival all expenses paid. I was stunned to learn that whilst a hotel was available to them and a tour of Seoul was laid on, they were not introduced to Korean directors or to the Korean film industry, which clearly kept its distance". Orange began looking for people to collaborate with on Facebook. Setting up a group, he found people from outside Korea were joining, which led him to think about expat filmmakers as a whole. "A key idea was the fact that whilst there were expatriates in Korea, there were Korean expatriates elsewhere, and these groups shared similar problems and interests", he said. "These two groups could in theory compliment and help each other". He expanded the idea into arts in general using Facebook ads, to become Expat Arts - now 3c World - where he again found a niche. "The expatriate population was so transitory that there were no consistent organizations that supported expatriates in the arts of any kind, as these clubs or media were often entirely dependent on a sole leader figure", said Orange. "But what was interesting was that there was and still is a remarkable amount of creativity amongst foreign teachers in Korea, many of whom collaborate with Koreans inspired by local culture". But, moving to Spain, he found that not all expat experiences were the same. "I found that the Spanish were much tougher on foreigners than Koreans, practically refusing to speak English and expecting foreigners to speak Spanish or learn fast", he said. "Koreans make life remarkably convenient for foreigners compared to some European countries". Even the name Expat Arts was called into question. "In Spain I became aware that foreigners did not refer to themselves as expatriates. Typically retirees living on the south coast of Spain are known as expatriates, but the white collar worker in Madrid or elsewhere didn't identify with the term. "I read that within two years there have been 2 million immigrants into Spain, many from Africa and Eastern Europe. People call these people immigrants; they do unsavory jobs like migrant workers in Korea. Why aren't these people called expatriates? Are they, for some reason, a lower class of expatriate? Who are the expatriates in England? Are they the London foreign bankers or the new immigrants living in Bradford or Blackburn? "I found the word 'foreigner' actually is the most universally translatable. The language we use, however, for anything foreign coming in to a place has essentially negative connotations". But in August this year Orange decided he could not continue to lead the group and with a change of name came a change of chairman. He and his successor David Kilburn, an Englishman living in Seoul and Tokyo with 40 years experience in arts, business, journalism and international affairs, agreed to change the name to 3c World. The group was moved from Facebook to www.3cworld.org, with the 3c borrowed from 3CK, or third culture kid, a word used to describe expat children. Kilburn hopes to see the group's webzine, which is written by members and edited in Singapore by Cindy Chak, become monthly. "We are also reviewing how we present music, and support those members who are musicians, songwriters, or performers", said Kilburn. "We also intend to develop an online art gallery that will host curated exhibitions analogous to those in the bricks and mortar world. We are currently looking at programming issues together with a European company. This will happen during 2009". And the group has kept growing - 3CW now includes members in more than 70 countries and connects 107 groups. While "Eternal Reflections" may well have been held without 3CW, the viral enthusiasm that saw the network grow could also be seen in how the event developed. "The original idea was to give expats in Daegu a platform for exhibiting their work. However the project grew quickly and - across two shows - we eventually ended up with more than 60 artists all over Korea", said Eddie Pye, who is also a director of Blank Canvas. Not only did it grow into two shows, there was also a spin off from the first in July, sponsored by Daegu City. Pye was responsible for conceptual design as well as contacting and organizing artists. "3C as a network of expat artists was quite important in this respect", he said. "It also provided a good platform for giving the artists involved in the show more exposure on the 'net". "The art scene in Daegu and Korea is one that, unless you're looking hard. You don't really see as a foreigner", he added. "If you want to see art you really have to dig for it. "This was one of the reasons that we decided to hold the event because it seems quite hard for expats to get involved in the scene. The fact that we held a Daegu City sponsored show directly after the 1st Eternal Reflections - and based on its success - shows that there really was a gap missing between art culture among foreigners and art culture among Koreans. The shows went some way to uniting the two". Pye was keen to highlight the quality in Korea's undeveloped art scene. "If you look at it from the Korean perspective - the art scene is amazing. I think this is helped by the fact that in Korea - art is much more of an unaccepted notion. This means the people actually doing art have a much greater appreciation and passion for it - the ideas are more abstract and there is a greater quality that you may not get in another country where the market is saturated". Peter Orange is also quick to highlight the potential in Korea. "To me Seoul shares a 'Golden Age' with the rest of East Asia, fresh optimism for the future is in the air and entrepreneurial spirit is rampant. Meanwhile in England, there are cultural tensions, social divisions and pessimism". "I could afford to be entrepreneurial in Korea because as a teacher I had the time and money. But in England I cannot". But, he notes, there are still restrictions on freedom of expression here that other places do not have. "So much could be achieved in Korea by foreigners if they were given the freedom legally to express themselves more creatively. Korea would become more attractive and I don't think foreigners would abuse that. Koreans must realize that for every foreigner in Korea they have a good five expatriates or so abroad in other countries". By Paul Kerry Source : www.koreaherald.co.kr... ( |
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