Berlin intersected our lives for a second time, on Sunday, June 13, when we met Nancy to go to Itaewon and the Berlin Café for an art opening. The show featured work by three expat artists—and here’s an intersection within an intersection—one of them Anna Phillips from Hobart, Tasmania, where I spent four months last year.
(Photograph: Peter Harris)
Anna has been living in Seoul for five or six years, studying bojagi, traditional Korean wrapping cloths*. These cloths were/are used as food coverings, gift wrap, and to transport things. Anna uses traditional bojagi patterns and methods in her work, but not traditional materials. In an interview with The Korea Times she said “`I have attempted to use the traditional art of bojagi with Korean plastic bags, which have such dynamic motifs and symbols printed on their surfaces. With my latest art pieces, I am trying to reflect and comment on modern life, and our relationship to the past, both from an international and personal perspective,'' Some of Anna’s pieces seemed nearly transparent, with a linen-like finish to them. Others were complex patchwork.
One of Anna's patchwork hangings. (My photograph)
Anna will return to Hobart shortly where she’s been commissioned to do a piece for the Kelly Garden, the sculpture square beside the Kelly Steps. She showed me photographs of a wonderful and large crocheted (from plastic) throw hung over the wall there—an earlier commission. I climbed those steps many times during my stay in Hobart, and looking at those photos made me homesick for that city. It was lovely to talk with Anna and trade names of people whom we knew there.
Another treat that afternoon was hearing Anna’s husband, Robert Harwood (a famous surname in Hobart if you’re a writer) who provided guitar music. Robert was a rock musician for many years and plays a mean blues. He is now teaching social geography to high school students here, but in the fall will teach English as a second language to older students in Saudi Arabia.
Robert Harwood at the Berlin Café (Photo: Peter Harris)
* For more information about bojagi see: http://www.koreanculture.org/06about_korea/symbols/19bojagi.htm
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