UKYA South Korea Diaries 2017

PART 1

Michelle Bowen and Garth Gratrix arrived in Seoul on a sunny Wednesday morning on 11th October to begin the new journey of collaborative working with our Korea partners at the Seojung Arts Centre. Our time here so far has been visiting the presentation venue, the National Assembly of South Korea, which is like our houses of parliament so a great Privilege to be there and working with the whole team!

We have been working on the logistics and delivery of the presentation and official opening of our joint show ‘The Beginning’ ensuring that all the technical and exhibition needs are in place in this beautiful space (which did mean a quick order Placed to ikea!) 

Seeing the first ‘hot off the press’ catalogues and invites was such a proud moment, a beautiful publication. It was all becoming very real as we all talked about how far we had come since our first visit 11 months ago.

We are looking forward to welcoming our artists to this amazing city on Sunday, it will be so inspiring for you all...see you soon!

PART 2

It's been a busy last few days for UKYA, the artists all arrived on Sunday apart from four who sadly had to endure another 24 hours before they could land. We met with our new Chinese partners from the Yiyuan Tang museum and Won Hee and Eunsol fromthe Seojung Gallery to discuss a mutual cooperative agreement which supports young artists in China, Korea and the UK through collaboration, discussion and presentation.

Our big day arrived with the official opening of " The Beginning", the occasion is one which is very diffrent to openings back in the UK, here it is much more formal and focussed on the work and business. Approximately 50 people attended from senior members of the Korean National Assembly to galleries, British Council and Embassy. The feedback we had about the quality of work and performances of our artists was outstanding and we fully expect some exciting opportunities to emerge for the artists over the coming months.

As we draw out visit to a close we can confidently say that this mission exceeded our expectations and UKYA feels very proud of what a small company can do with support from Arts Council England to make a change in the career of an artist. The learning, exploration, creative development and friendships that were made have been extraordinary and we look forward to welcoming our Korean friends back to the UK in 2019.