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| A screenshot of seoulnotes.com advertising performances, exhibitions and film screenings / Courtesy of seoulnotes.com |
By Jon Dunbar
There's no shortage of artistic and cultural activities available for foreigners in Seoul, even during this pandemic. The problem is finding out about them ― or getting the word out to people who will benefit. Blossom and Eric Perriard aim to bridge that gap, with their new website seoulnotes.com which gives information on art shows, screenings of independent films and subtitled Korean films, exhibitions and other miscellaneous events.
"This year, it's become pretty key to make the most of the city you live in, so we decided to go to more shows and take the opportunity to explore more of Seoul," Blossom, an Australian citizen, said in an online introduction. "But we realized there's no English-friendly website that tells you what art shows, exhibitions, movies or events are on at a given time or day."
Her husband Eric, who is from France, told her of Pariscope, which lists upcoming or ongoing cultural events. Now a website, it was a printed magazine published weekly before 2016, and used to be a book.
In their eight years living in Seoul, the closest things they've found to Pariscope are timeout.com and english.seoul.go.kr, but Blossom says these sites are not always reliable and don't cover her tastes perfectly. Her solution has been to follow the individual social media accounts of every art gallery or check their websites to find out what's going on, a process she describes as "kind of inconvenient."
"I have a spreadsheet of as many venues as I've been able to list and I periodically check their websites for current and upcoming shows," she explained. "A slightly laborious process, but we're looking for ways to automate it with artificial intelligence (natural language processing)," she added, mentioning her husband works as an AI developer.
They also welcome outside suggestions about events. "Just as long as there is an associated website with images and text ― preferably in both English and Korean," she added. A contact email address for seoulnotes.com is listed at the bottom of every page.
So far, the site focuses on art shows, movies and exhibitions based on Blossom's own interests. "The reason for these categories is that they were mostly what I was trying to track down for myself personally," she said. "Honestly, this project is as much for us to learn about venues and events as it is for visitors to the site!"
Currently, the page lists 20 art shows, two exhibitions, nine films and six other miscellaneous events. The advantage of art shows and exhibitions is they run for longer periods of time, unlike independent films which have limited screenings.
"I wanted to feature independent films because mainstream cinemas and movies get so much play here, whereas independent and art house cinema does not get much attention. In a city of 10 million plus people there are only a handful of cinemas showing independent films," she said.
"I really wanted to include the Korean films with English subtitles as there are only a few cinemas that provide this service ― making Korean cinema accessible to foreign/non-Korean-speaking audiences. I'm not sure if many people are aware that these screenings exist, but for those who are interested in Korean cinema, it is something we should all be taking advantage of."
She added that in the future she hopes to include music and food & drink events on the site. "We haven't touched these yet, as gathering the content for the listings will be a different kind of beast, I imagine. But it is definitely in our sights," she said.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the city's cultural and artistic offerings are looking a little leaner than usual. But that just means all the more attention is needed for everything that is still running, as art galleries and small cinema venues struggle for survival.
"I think we've been really lucky in Korea that our daily lives have not been too disturbed by the pandemic, but not being able to travel should have prompted us to find ways to amuse ourselves in our own cities," Blossom said.
"We only started the project a month ago. At this particular time given the situation with the pandemic and venues having temporary closures and events being canceled, there are perhaps slightly fewer events that we've been able to feature than normal. I imagine as social distancing measures decrease and events become more numerous, our task may become a bit more time consuming. For now, it is not too taxing."
Visit seoulnotes.com for more information.
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