The Korean Cultural Center of Brussels will host from September 10 to October 30, 2020, the 7th Belgian-Korean comic strip exhibition on the theme of “Living together (Together)” which is all the more topical in these times of health crisis related to Covid 19. The KCC will present Korean and Belgian comic strip works that express the need for solidarity and cooperation within their culture.
This exhibition will be an opportunity to bring the two countries’ cultures even closer together by showing how Korea and Belgium are represented in these works. Emphasis will be placed on “Dooly the little dinosaur”, a character adored by all Koreans and a comic book as emblematic for our country as the Smurfs are for the Belgians.
Dooly was already present last year at the International Comics Festival in Brussels, as well as in his big Parade in the form of giant balloons. The 7th edition of our Belgian-Korean comic book exhibition will present four Korean works, Dooly, My Life in Prison, Woori and Sunhwa and CUBIC, as well as three Belgian works, Us Two Together, Sugar and Madame Catherine.
2020 is a year in which we will have experienced deep inside our bodies the constraint of a physical distancing made necessary by Covid 19. This is why the theme of this exhibition will be “Relationship”. For this 7th edition of our Belgian-Korean comic strip exhibition, the KCC has selected works taking into account the originality of their form and the power of their graphic language, as well as a content that transcends the exhibited plates and opens a shared questioning of the culture of the image between our two countries.
It must be said that comic books are an art form very familiar to both Belgian and Korean audiences; in Belgium, the homeland of the Smurfs, this art form represents 52% of the publishing market share, albums and online sales combined, with a growth rate of 34% over the last ten years; in other words, it is the realm of comic books. As for Korea, where comic books have become digitalized in our digital age and are mostly in the form of webtoons, its market weighs a thousand billion won and its fame continues to grow.
The Korean and Belgian comics that we present in this exhibition all have in common the theme of sharing. The spectator will be able to familiarize himself with and establish an intimate bond with each work. Not only will they find the comics themselves and the presentation of their author, but they will also be able to discover precious documents, such as original plates, sketches, the artists’ working tools, or other of their works.
The visitor will thus build bridges between the two cultures, to better understand them, in a spirit of sharing between the countries. In this exhibition, you will be able to greet Dooly, enter the Prison cell, encourage Woori and Sunhwa, call Sugar to get to know her and become close to Madame Catherine by listening to the terrible story she tells you. Us Two Together, as the title suggest, it is when we are together that these words acquire their true meaning.
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Korean Cultural Center
Rue de la Régence 4, 1000 Bruxelles
From Monday to Friday 9 am – 5 pm, Closed on Saturdays, Sundays and on Korean, Belgian and European holidays
