A selection of Korea’s most exciting contemporary artists have been selected for this year’s Korean Artists Today, a long-term project which will see a cohort of artists chosen each year for their potential to make it on the global stage. See the full list here.
The Rice Brewing Sisters Club was formed in 2018 by Hyemin Son, Aletheia Hyun-Jin Shin and Soyoon Ryu. Although each are artists in their own right, the trio remain at the centre of this shape-shifting collective, united by what they describe as “a shared interest in socially based practice and in creating work together that is based on relationships”.
Underpinning all of the Sisters’ activities is the core concept of “social fermentation”, a fluid term that expands the notion of fermentation beyond biochemical brewing into communal activities and conceptual art. “We started with projects around making fermented food and drinks, often using traditional methodologies or what we call ‘auntie wisdoms’,” they explain. “But then we expanded this definition into a social form: cooking, writing, crop cultivation, bio-lab experiments and oral history documentation. Social fermentation delivers a different story for each project.”
In Cheopcheopdamdam Iyagigeuk (2020), the Rice Brewing Sisters Club created a film of folk stories with residents of a mountain village Image: © Courtesy KAMS
To this end the Sisters have collaborated with brewers, farmers, storytellers, artists, scientists and writers, as well as community organisations both within and outside South Korea. These include workshops to make rice wine using nuruk (yeast) and local fruits (Chew Chew Spit Spit, 2019); joining forces with Sister’s Garden, a women farmer organisation practising indigenous agriculture (Soil-Soil-Land, 2020-21); and in 2020 shooting a film of folk stories with the residents of the mountain village of Deokgeo-ri.
Now they have turned their attention to the ocean. “Fermentation happens in every facet of the environment: in the air, the land and also in the ocean, with marine micro-organisms,” they say. “So we have started working with a sea algae called agar-agar, which has many uses and grows robustly on the shores of South Korea and Japan.” The Sisters’ installation, Sea Plants, Bare Hands, Entangled Gaetbawi for the 2022 Busan Biennale was the result of research into the algae growing around the Busan coastline, as well as a deep engagement with the spiritual beliefs of the female haenyeo divers who harvest the agar-agar by hand. Most recently, Holobiont Galaxy (2023-24) at MMCA in Seoul found the Sisters working with laboratory technicians to create sculptural objects made from agar-agar as well as a living algae colony, all of which were safely returned to the ocean at the end of the show.
According to the Rice Brewing Sisters Club, agar-agar has the potential to “create a whole different paradigm of what plastic is, how it’s produced and how it’s used”. This realisation has led to the creation of Rice Brewing Sisters Production, a commercial arm through which the collective aims to support their future endeavours through the distribution and sale of low-priced agar-agar-derived goods, including home production kits.
• The Rice Brewing Sisters Club have participated in exhibitions including Project Hashtag 2023 at MMCA Seoul; Busan Biennale 2022; at Korean Cultural Centre UK; and at the Nam June Paik Art Center, Yongin
