
STORY SEEKERS:
Storytelling - Activism - Imagination
Story Seekers is a practice-based research project led by six artists from Canada and Korea: Kim Miryeon, kimura byol lemoine, Koh Seung Wook, June Pak, Park Jiwon, and RaYun. The project is anchored in forms of storytelling as its primary methodology, exploring various ways to illustrate both personal and collective histories. It is an interdisciplinary collaboration that explores complex themes such as history, memory, nature, and separation through various artistic languages, including photography, video, and performance. The project expands beyond an exhibition, encompassing a publication and public conversations.
This project began as an exchange initiative between the Korea Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts in 2023, commemorating the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
We would like to acknowledge the financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Mapping out the research during Open Studio at Alternative Artspace Ipo, Seoul, KR (2023)

Studying Naebanggassa with Chairwoman Lee Seon-ja, Naebanggassa Preservation Society, Andong, KR (2023)

Learning history and culture of Andong with Chairman Kim Ho-Tae, Andong Cultural Guardian, Andong, KR (2023)

Group photo in Jong Nam village, Jeju, KR (2024)

Studying history and the people of Jeju, various sites around Jeju Island, KR (2024)

Discussion table during Open Studio at Alternative Artspace Ipo, Seoul, KR (2023)

Special pass to Tong-Il village (inside the DMZ), Paju, KR (2023)
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June Pak is an interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto, Canada, and travels between Seoul and Toronto for her art practice. Drawing on her experience of emigrating to Canada from Korea in her late teens, she explores questions about the validity of being visible. To avoid simplifying the representation of the marginalized, she employs a reserved and observational visual language to bring forward invisible and overlooked aspects of their lives through storytelling. Her works have been exhibited and screened at conventional galleries and alternative venues across Canada and abroad. She was awarded the Chalmers Arts Fellowship (2017 – 2019) for her research on the lives of non-ethnic Koreans in Korea. Currently, she is leading an international collaboration project called Story Seekers with support from the Canada-Korea Connections grant (2023-2025). Since 2016, she has been teaching at the University of Toronto and OCAD University.
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Jiwon Park uses film, video, photography, sound, and media installations to visualize the invisible forces shaping the world. Site specificity informs his work, considering its history, function, and relationship to the people who occupy it. His interest in community and neighbourhood solidarity was solidified 16 years ago in Mullae Arts Village. Now, Park is the Artistic Director at the Alternative Artspace Ipo in Mullae.
In 2017, he led an archival project, Mullae: Village of Technology and Art [문래공감], which documented the site-specificity of Mullae and its creative activities over a 10-year period. Currently, he is expanding the activities of local art spaces through international exchange projects. He is pursuing a master’s degree in Media and Cultural Studies, focusing his research on the reciprocal relationship between artistic experiences and community formation in cultural places and localities.
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Kim Miryeon is based in Daegu and works across Daegu, Seoul, and Germany. She examines the institutional and structural contradictions within our society. In her work, she utilizes digital technology to expand the concept of site-specific art, focusing on revealing and visualizing the absurdities embedded in historical sites and everyday life, which are overshadowed by the political ideologies stemming from the division of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, she has led the artist collective 'Local Post' for over 12 years, addressing contemporary issues through interdisciplinary artistic activities and temporary community projects. Through these initiatives, she intervenes in various marginalized contexts, providing visibility and a voice to those who are often unseen and unheard. In 2025, she established Space Ri Sangchun, where she conducts site-specific, performative, and process-oriented projects, documenting and archiving these efforts through exhibitions.
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kimura byol lemoine (키무라 별 르뫈 – 木村 ビヨル レムワンー) is an ABC (asian belgo-coréan) atypic agender asian adopted abroad, activist and archivist. zer artwork focuses on identities (diaspora, ethnicity, colorism, post-colonialism, immigration, gender) and expresses these themes through calligraphy, paintings, digital images, poems, videos, and collaborations. Zer curatorial projects amplify the voices and visibility of minorities. zer work has been exhibited, screened, published, and supported nationally and internationally. kimura byol lemoine lives and works in tiohtià:ke, an unceded land in kanata.
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Koh Seung Wook captures the individuals, happenings, and scenery he encounters while navigating the delicate balance between joy and sorrow through video, performance, and photographs. He has participated in numerous art exhibitions and is currently engaged in community-based projects such as A Gift from a Lost Village (2021—ongoing).
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RaYun was born in Korea in 1970. She is interested in the stories that emerge from the gap between everyday life and nature in the city. Her primary focus has been on expressing nature and imagination through various media. In her recent project, Embrace with the Intruder, she explores the ecological logic found in Jeju's forests. She carefully inserts herself into the preserved nature in hopes of becoming one with it.