Busan Biennale
The Busan Biennale is a biannual international contemporary art show that integrated three different art events held in the city in 1998: the Busan Youth Biennale, the first biennale of Korea that was voluntarily organized by local artists in 1981; the Sea Art Festival, an environmental art festival launched in 1987 with the sea serving as a backdrop; and the Busan International Outdoor Sculpture Symposium that was first held in 1991. The biennale was previously called the Pusan International Contemporary Art Festival (PICAF) before it launched.
The biennale has its own unique attribute in that it was formed not out of any political logic or need but rather the pure force of local Busan artists’ will and their voluntary participation. Even to this day their interest in Busan's culture and its experimental nature has been the key foundation for shaping the biennale’s identity.
This biennale is the only one like it in the world that was established through an integration of three types of art events such as a Contemporary Art Exhibition, Sculpture Symposium, and Sea Art Festival. The Sculpture Symposium in particular was deemed to be a successful public art event, the results of which were installed throughout the city and dedicated to revitalizing cultural communication with citizens. The networks formed through the event have assumed a crucial role in introducing and expanding domestic art overseas and leading the development of local culture for globalized cultural communication. Founded 38 years ago, the biennale aims to popularize contemporary art and achieve art in everyday life by providing a platform for interchanging experimental contemporary art.
Haenyeo from Jeju (An Mijeong)
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관리자 2022-12-19 10:11
Associate professor, Institute of International Maritime Affairs, Korea Maritime and Ocean University
The practice of women divers gathering seafood in the underwater is known in Korean as muljil—a word that literally means “working in the water.” It is a production activity in which the divers hold their breath to collect various forms of marine life from the waters. This life of collecting seafood without the assistance of mechanical equipment carries its share of difficulties, and it requires the divers to have an adventurous spirit along with techniques to help them constantly adapt their bodies to the sea. Known as haenyeo, these women divers can be found in various bodies of water off the Korean coast today, providing a representative example of Korean female-centered fisheries. A major factor in this history was the role played by haenyeo from Jeju Island who relocated to other regions.
This economically motivated Jeju’s women divers to leave their hometown in the late 19th century. To gather seafood, Jeju’s haenyeo (also known as jamnyeo, meaning “diving women,” and jamsu, meaning “diving wives”) in small group units for the mainland’s southern coast for fishing journeys known as nanbareu or bakkat muljil (literally “outside diving”). The number of women leaving on such migration rose substantially in the 20th century in the wake of Japanese colonial era in 1910—a trend that would continue after liberation and into the 1960s.
By the 1970s, an increasing number of diverse began settling in these other regions; today, haenyeo can be found in nearly every coastal region of South Korea outside of Gyeonggi Province. As this shows, the emergence of the modern Korean haenyo culture was closely tied to Haenyeo’s migration to Jeju Island. An especially large number migrated to the southeastern coast and the Japanese archipelago where the Kuroshio Current flows. Busan played a major role as a base in that migration flow.