We are pleased to announce the winners of “My Korea is …”!
We received several interesting entries from different places in Europe and want to give our thanks to all the participants of the event.
The number of awarded prizes is proportional to the number of entries in each category. We are therefore awarding one Jury Favourite for students studying a Korea related major at a European university as well as one Jury Favourite for Korean citizens studying at a European university. For the categories there is no distinction between Korean and European students.
The Jury Favourites as the 1st places will be awarded with 500€ each, the 2nd places of a category with 300€ and the 3rd places of a category with 100€.
Congratulations to the winners and a big “Thank you” to all the participants who made this event possible!
Jury Favourite (1st Prize for European student): Kamilla Cseke (Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary)
"Inspired by the structure of the Korean play, my poem takes you on a journey through the 4 seasons, each of them representing different emotions and scenery, hoping to give you a momentary escape to Korea's atmosphere."
Areumbit Park (Kunstakademie Düsseldorf)
"Korea is a very complex country in history. After 35 years of Japanese occupation, many cultures were cut off, and after our autonomy was taken from USA, it is devided until now. The feelings of sorrow (HAN) we have are not only the sadness we always had to fight, but also the strength to be able to overcome it. Since I live in Germany, I often explain where I come from. I always explain that I am from Southkorea and ask myself what it means to be Korean and what Korea means. Before explaining to others, we need to know for ourselves what it means. I wanted to express our korean emotions through our own culture like Pansori and Talchum(Mask Dance). I attempted to show our strength based on the sorrow and humor. i took Simcheong Song of Pansori, especially using scene, where Shim Bong-sa opens his eyes, as background music. History can't be separated ans is always on the way. This means that when we open our eyes and understand our history as Korean, we can hope for better Korea."
Anina Zimmermann (Freie Universität Berlin)
"Using animations and real life footage I tried to make my impression of Korea seem more alive to the viewer while sharing my favorite stories."
Oana-Lavinia Goron (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M.)
"As a Korea enthusiast who hasn’t got the chance yet to explore this beautiful country in person, my entry consists of a video submission that hopefully encompasses, in the simplest manner, my respect and admiration towards Korean music, dramas, culture, language and cuisine and my contribution of sharing the Korean culture with the others in the hope that they too will see Korea for what it truly is and what it can offer."
Eunsong Park (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
"My Korea is open. This openness is not self-evident and therefore I would like to present why I believe so in the form of a short podcast."
Dennis Giang (Stockholm University)
"My entry is a poem about how Korean entertainment media especially music changed my perspective of myself and how I felt about myself. Growing up in a small village was tough. Especially during my school years because I looked different from others. It made me feel unwanted and hateful towards my features. This was before I came in contact with Korea through music."
Seongryeol Jo (RWTH Aachen)
"Every time i back to Korea, the first thing that make me feel the change of Korea is the architecture. Also it is the architecture where i can fell the tradition of Korea. I would like to introduce Korea through architecture that give me a sense of change and tradition."
"My Korea is a unified Korea. To express this, two colors, red and blue, of the Taegeukgi, are used. I mixed them in one color, purple. The poster was decorated with illustrations representing different regions of Korea. I designed the poster with trendy and youthful colors in the hope that younger people will become more interested in the subject."
"My Korea is a country that is prospering in modernity while holding onto its unique traditional culture. I am very interested in Korean art and hope to learn more about it over the course of my studies, which is why I portrayed my Korea in a drawing using elements of the Korean folk art 민화 minhwa as well as contemporary motifs, depicting them in a more modern and minimalistic way, yet only using the traditional Korean color spectrum 오방색 obangsaek.
As art always leaves room for interpretation the beholder of this drawing is encouraged to do so."
"I hope my art is not too abstract. I was inspired by Lee Hyorin's song "seoul" where she talks about Seoul's atmosphere. I like listening to this song a lot and thinking back of Korea so I put the lyrics in the background. I also always associate rain with Korea because I was there during monsun season so I splashed it with water. The curly hair girl is me, dreaming of going back. I miss this place and the atmosphere a lot. my Korea is bright and full of adventures."
"My Korea is …"
<<Lasting foundation stone>>
The photo portrays the foundation stones at Hwangnyongsa Temple in Gyengju. Although the temple was burned in 13th century, the stones, which are deeply rooted into soil, are left everlasting. This is for me Korea, as a Korean composer in Germany.
Inseok Hwang (Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle)
"As a graphic design student, I have to handle the form. The form is sometimes graphic element, illustration, text or typography. Among them, handling letters is a characteristic of graphic designers. So I tried to express Korean graphically. It is about only a word in Korean. I like the word 'forest (in Korean 숲)'. This always gives me different feelings. Cool, green, breeze, lonely, a song of a bird, grass insufficiency. A few years a got I found some sentences in Korean literary works.(Hoon Kim <The Bicycle Trip>, 2004 and Kang Han <Greek Lessons>, 2011). I thought those might be a good examples with which one could easily understand a phonetic character from the Hangul. It's about the pronunciation of the word through which one can feel that wind and silence. So I wanted to make a poster with which people can learn and pronounce this word in Korean."
Junhee Han (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
"When people plan a travel to abroad, they usually search landmarks of city or country. The image of landmark makes an expectation before the travel, and during the travel it becomes a first impression of the country, and after the travel it remains as an unforgettable memory.
These works were done 2017 in Seoul, Korea. During 3days, I took pictures of beautiful moments I’ve never experienced, although I visited plenty times the palace ‘Kyeongbok’ and ‘Ducksoo’. Because I focused at only 2 things during my work: Eaves and Dancheong.
I wanted to show ‘my artistic Korea’ to my new foreign friends I will meet in near future at University in Germany. Curved lines on the edge of roof and various colors beneath the roof are perfect visual factors to introduce Korea and I think that these charming points are enough to attract them."