Countryside Adventures, Korean Style!!!

Helloooo!!!!

Ooops I've been super slow at updating my blog over the past couple of weeks....I had an outrageously hectic week with my work schedule in preparation to heading off to explore more of lovely South Korea!Mammoth amounts of research and collecting of fabrics in Seoul and late night sewing sessions galore! Last week I travelled with a fellow artist in residence, Soo-young, to the beautiful Korean countryside!

A huge part of my project is based around community interaction and gaining an understanding of heritage and cultural identity, mainly within rural communities so it's an awesome opportunity to be able to get that first hand insight and meet people to hear their stories. I'm really interested in the fishing industry here and how local institutions operate in a village environment....it's such a massive contrast to my everyday life so it's really incredible to see and amazing to meet people who can teach me so much.

Touring around and meeting so many new people has allowed me to do some hardcore research and I'm now in the process of cracking on with my new works as part of my artist residency. The fabric markets here in South Korea are the best thing ever....I love being able to find everything I could ever possibly need all under one roof~ Dongdaemun is a total dreamland!!! There are some amazing colours and prints so it's been exciting to source so many new fabrics and I'm super excited to be working with them! My rural adventures have allowed me to see some super dramatic landscapes and it's the perfect time of year to check out such places out as there are some interesting colours and textures with spring just lurking around the corner. At the moment the farmers are burning the dead stumps in their rice fields in preparation for growing the new crops, so everything looks kind of dull and gloomy but then you see all of these neon orange flames blazing...which also means there's a nice bonfire smell all over the place!

Of course with the countryside also comes wildlife...as we have established before I'm really not one for creepy crawlies etc. In fact the other night my lifetime nightmare actually came true...Imagine the middle of the night, popping to make a cup of tea...what's that on the floor??? Yeah, biggest spider I've ever seen in my life... 

this one was one of those proper style ones that you see on the internet and stuff.....not your standard house spider.....it was the worst experience ever...we were HYSTERICAL.....our screams didn't even sound human... The photo doesn't do it justice....this beast was about 3 inches wide and no way was I getting any closer with the camera....needless to say we didn't sleep that night and instead just sat drinking coffee and staring around the room on alert for any more!!! It was HORRENDOUS...I'll never forget this incident!!!!!!eeeeesh I can't bare to even think about it...!!!

Anyway...I've got a cup of tea waiting and a pile of sewing to be getting on with so on that note, I'll wrap it up here!
Love and Sparkles,
Emma xxxx