An Introduction

A short history or a word vomit? Or a bit of both?

Hey there. My name is Phil, and I’m an Irish storyteller and event planner living in South Korea.

I’ve spent over 12 years documenting the work of independent artists, musicians, and others within the creative scenes in Korea, and while doing so also found myself creating and developing community. It wasn’t part of the plan, but it turns out I enjoy bringing people together.

In 2012 I moved from Ireland to Ulsan, South Korea. The home of Hyundai, it was full of factories, shipyards, and generally viewed as an industrial city. With a population close to that of Dublin, I was surprised by what seemed to be a void of local culture. When I asked about art or music, I was told I would need to go to Seoul to find it.

I couldn’t believe it. So I started a bilingual arts and culture website called Angle Magazine in 2013, and spent 10 years finding incredible work made locally, specifically in the scenes outside of Seoul. From that point on, I snowballed into making monthly music shows in a bar downtown, I added video and podcasts to the website, planned art exhibitions, poetry events, and whatever idea came into my head I attempted to follow through on. I created the audio-visual festival Big Day South, which would vary between a 1 and 3 day event, featuring music, dance, performance art, poetry, theater, live painting, exhibitions, interactive art, and much much more.

It was a wonderful 10 years, but burnout hit just as the Covid pandemic started. After two years, as restrictions started to open up I took a few steps back towards community focused events before losing another 2 years to 3 knee surgeries. Despite best efforts to keep things going, I finally accepted the need to stop and focus on recovery.

After a long break, I’ve found myself coming back to documenting through video interviews on YouTube, and gradually starting to make community focused events again. I’m going at a much slower pace than before, and also looking to challenge myself creatively after so many years of promoting others. I’m still promoting the work of others, but doing so through a medium with which I’m unfamiliar in order to learn and try out new things.

It’s been many years since I kept a writing habit, and through this newsletter I’m hoping to:

• share the process of what I do

• get a little deeper into the ideas of event planning and community building

• add a few recommendations to check out locally or online

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read this. It was tough to write about myself, as I feel I’m the least interesting person out of all the stories I have to share. I’ll be back with more bi-weekly(ish).

Phil ❤️

New This Week

• The excellent Jambinai will play in Busan with support from Seaweed Mustache

• Seoul Players open submissions for scripts for the 10 Minute Play Festival

• The Korean Music Awards took place on February 27. Winners and nominations listed here.

• Facebook group Busan Lightstalkers will hold a photowalk on March 16th