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SPECIAL FEATURE 1 Korean Life as Permeated by Hanji

Hanji, traditional Korean paper made from the bark of the paper mulberry tree (dak), was once an inextricable part of Korean life. Its wide range of uses — from paintings and calligraphy to books, household items, and furniture — led to the development of diverse hanji crafts. As a material used for a variety of purposes in traditional homes, it also became deeply embedded in Korea’s residential culture.

Special Feature 2 Hanji: A Language of Art

Hanji has moved beyond its role as a traditional material to become a vital medium for contemporary artistic experimentation. For artists seeking to articulate their distinctly Korean identity, hanji offered an essential methodology for realizing artistic philosophies that are not based on Western frameworks. With a history spanning a thousand years, it continues to command attention as an expressive language that affirms the contemporaneity of Korean art in an era marked by rapidly shifting aesthetic sensibilities and artistic values.

SPECIAL FEATURE 3 Paper that Preserves Time and Memories

Hanji appeals to both the senses of sight and touch. Its most defining quality, however, only reveals itself over time. Unlike ordinary paper, which weakens as it ages, well-made hanji grows more durable as its fibers stabilize. The epithet “thousand-year paper” is not poetic hyperbole but a testament to a measurable reality: Hanji is a material that endures and even improves under the weight of time.

Special Feature 4 Artists Add New Pages to Hanji’s Rich History

Hanji has secured a vital place as an expressive medium in contemporary craft and design. It imposes no limits on form or detail, conveying artists’ intentions with a flexibility that few materials can match. Transcending its status as a cultural inheritance, hanji has been reinterpreted by contemporary artists to beautifully permeate the rhythms of modern everyday life.

Features

Arts & Culture

Entertainment 2026 SPRING

The Hunt for K-pop’s Next Chapter The Netflix orginal KPop Demon Hunters, released in June 2025, continues to captivate global audiences of all ages and has rapidly emerged as a cultural force in its own right. Its impact extended well beyond the screen: The film not only won Best Animated Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards, its featured track, “Golden,” took home an Oscar for Best Original Song as well as Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 68th Grammy Awards. The film’s virtual girl group, HUNTR/X, also performed at the 79th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA). Indeed, the film’s meteoric rise shows no signs of slowing.

#K-pop #KPopDemonHunters #Golden #OST

Entertainment 2026 SPRING

An Ascending Auteur’s Unsettling Questions Released in October 2025, The World of Love is the first feature in six years from director Yoon Ga-eun, an up-and-coming filmmaker drawing growing attention at home and abroad for her accomplished cinematic language. Acclaim from industry greats, critics, and audiences fueled a groundswell of encouragement to view the film.

#YoonGaEun #TheWorldOfLove #KoreanCinema #IndependentFilm

Brick by Brick 2026 SPRING

Joh Sung-yong: Architecture Layered with Time Guided by a respect for the tangible and intangible values that accumulate within a space over time — from layered histories to collective memory — Joh Sung-yong has cultivated a distinctive voice in contemporary Korean architecture. Born in 1944, he has long been interested in multi-family housing and public architecture, designing residential complexes, museums, memorial halls, and parks of varying scales.

#JohSungYong #KoreanArchitecture #PublicArchitecture #SeoulDesign #ArchitecturalMemory

Art Review 2026 SPRING

The Texture of the Digital Painter’s Screen Ram Han — the professional moniker of Han Jihye — cultivates tension between the grotesque and the sublime, set against a sleek, dreamlike palette of fluorescent hues. By transmuting the digital texture of the screen into a profound painterly experience, she articulates a new visual lexicon for the digital age, one that resonates powerfully with the sensibilities of her generation.

#RamHan #DigitalPainter #ContemporaryArt #DigitalArtExhibition #KoreanArtists

Guardians of Heritage 2026 SPRING

Past Customs Reborn as Modern Trends The Onyang Folk Museum is Korea’s largest private institution dedicated to the systematic preservation of traditional life. Its vast collection is meticulously organized to reflect the full spectrum of Korean social and cultural practices — from housing and livelihood to rituals and the arts. Outside the exhibition halls, a carefully landscaped garden further enriches the experience, allowing the museum to function as a cultural space that combines historical learning with unhurried leisure.

#OnyangFolkMuseum #FolkArtifacts #CulturalPreservation #ObjetOnyang

Interview 2026 SPRING

Avant-Garde Artist with a Classical Soul Danpyunsun has been described as a philosophical artist navigating the threshold between language and sound. Since his debut in 2004, he has pioneered an experimental terrain, breathing new life into Korean indie music. Any conversation on the genre’s evolution is incomplete without looking at Danpyunsun’s role.

#Danpyunsun #KoreanIndie #ExperimentalMusic

Focus 2026 SPRING

Haenyeo: From the Ocean to the English Lexicon The culture of haenyeo on Jeju Island has been passed down through scores of generations, forming a distinctive community-based tradition. As K-dramas and documentaries celebrating the women divers reach global audiences on streaming platforms, international interest in haenyeo continues to swell. Against this backdrop, the Oxford English Dictionary added “haenyeo” to its lexicon in January this year.

#Haenyeo #WomenDivers #KoreanTradition #JejuCulture

Entertainment 2025 WINTER

Shamanism Moves from Twilight to Spotlight In recent years, Korean pop culture content has been drawing shamanism out of the margins. Once cast in a negative light, shamans are now being reimagined by the entertainment industry, with recent portrayals moving beyond cliches and offering a subtler, more complex view of their world.

#ShamanismInPopCulture #KPopDemonHunters #KoreanShamanism #FortuneTellersLove

LifeStyle

K-uisine 2026 SPRING

Spring Greens: Sustenance in Times of Scarcity Spring greens (bom namul) are aromatic delicacies that capture the season’s quintessential flavors. A bowl of soup exuding the fragrant scent of mugwort, a spoonful of rice topped with soy sauce and Korean wild chive, and soybean paste stew with finely chopped shepherd’s purse — all of these signal the arrival of spring. However, savoring spring greens as a seasonal delight is a relatively recent luxury. In the past, people in Korea had to endure springs as harsh as the winters that preceded them, so these greens were not a delicacy but vital for survival.

#BomNamul #KoreanCuisine #SeasonalFood #SpringGreens

Books & More 2026 SPRING

Fighting for Survival on a Deadly Planet “Red Sword” Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur Honford Star, 2025 Fighting for Survival on a Deadly Planet

#RedSword #FromBeingtoBeing #KoreanBapsang

K-uisine 2025 WINTER

Tteokguk: A Bowl of Good Fortune Tteokguk, one of Korea’s most iconic holiday dishes, is a soup of diagonally sliced garaetteok — long, cylindrical rice cakes — served in a savory, meat-based broth. While recipes and preparation methods differ slightly by region, the dish conveys the same wishes for health and happiness wherever it is made. Once reserved for holidays, the soup is now an everyday favorite.

#LunarNewYear #Tteokguk #GoodFortune

Books & More 2025 WINTER

Striking Back at Injustice “Counterattacks at Thirty” Won-pyung Sohn, translated by Sean Lin Halbert HarperVia, 2025 233 pages, $19.99 Striking Back at Injustice

#CounterattacksatThirty #OkchundangCandy #Dramabeans

Another Day 2025 WINTER

Everything Begins with a Single Seed Efforts to preserve and raise awareness of native crops are gaining momentum in Korea. Byun Hyun-dan, president of the nonprofit organization Native Seedream, cultivates and distributes native seeds and promotes policies that protect farmers’ seed rights.

#NativeSeedsKorea #NativeSeedream #IndigenousCropsPreservation

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