Having the opportunity to exhibit together with other international students at the Seoul Institute of the Arts was a one in a lifetime opportunity. The best part of the trip for me was exploring Seoul; I am used to castles and folk dancing however, it was incredible to visit places like the Changdeokgung Palace, and watch the traditional dancing/folk music at the National Gugak Centre. On top of this, having the opportunity to meet other students from countries such as Japan, Indonesia and China was a prodigious experience in helping me become much more confident and open, as well as now being able to say ‘cheers’ in so many languages.
Working together in an international team was confusing in terms of understanding the different approaches to art; at Reading and the UK in general there is much more focus on the artistic implications and interpretations of our works, however the Korean university offered a range of specialised design courses and theatre/acting rather than fine art. Therefore, the way the exhibition was set up was much cleaner and concise, whereas in Reading it is messy and more abstract. It was complicated during the first few days when I was trying to figure out how to display my work, but everyone was super helpful and trying their best to make the exhibition look great. During the exhibition, giving each other gifts was one of the best moments of the trip because I got to speak to so many people and have solid memories of the incredibly creative pieces they exhibited, and it was amazing to hear about how others dealt with the concept of nature in such different ways using a wide variety of mediums, e.g. Ink, virtual reality, sculpture. Also, they had a lot of specialised technology and facilities; I got to view my film on a big screen that I did not have access to before and see how much further I can take my work, inspired by the performance piece at our exhibition when one of the girls hung from the ceiling as part of the piece.
The biggest challenge was definitely the language barrier, but it was not too difficult to overcome, most of the students spoke English and if they did not, we learnt about each other using google translate. Everyone was very eager to get to know each other and it was really lovely to hang out within the different groups and get to know people from the other side of the world. Although while communicating with the locals from the city and Ansan, everything was a lot more interesting because we had many lovely encounters with nice women trying to help us find our way around and wanting to be our friends, as well as sitting through an hour on the metro with two old men apparently discussing controversial politics which I would have loved to understand and be able to respond or conversate, However after visiting the Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art I was more able to understand some of the politics and history including how people had survived or dealt with the war and separation as well as invasion, rather than learning about it objectively in Western textbooks. Some of the artworks were really inspiring in depicting the feeling of being misplaced and the effects of history, which will inspire my own work in understanding and portraying a similar sense of separation and my own history.
I gained a lot of confidence and became more motivated to research and look for ways to communicate my work that will include my own background as well as an open space for interpretation allowing viewers from any culture to connect even if they have a much larger historical and political baggage such as the clear-cut separation in South Korea. I enjoyed this trip a lot because I got to see so many things with such a lovely group of people experiencing something new every day, like learning the traditional Korean folk dancing and having to perform in front of everyone.
Ecem Sınay 
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