Spotlight on our Alumni community: Meet Yunshin (Solga) Lee
Meet Yunshin (Solga) Lee, Alumna of the Atelier For Young Festival Managers Elefsina 2023.
Solga is a Korean musician, community artist, art educator, and the creator of Song of Hope, an experimental moving festival. In her work she is interested in the notion of hope and exploring ways to engage with communities through music in the context of peace and human rights. She also focuses on climate change and ecological life and using the arts and music as tools for expression and connection.
In a conversation with The Festival Academy, Solga shared interesting insights about her background, tells the stories of meaningful encounters with creatives that shaped her journey, and speaks about her ongoing (re-)search of the meaning of hope in our societies and how she thinks about new ways of creating a festival. She also talks about the creativity of communities and the power of festivals as platforms for artistic expression, discourse, and critical reflection.
The interview was conducted by Mette Van Zoest, research trainee at The Festival Academy.
The Festival Academy: Hi! It is great meeting you like this. Maybe you could start telling who you are, what you do and what your background is?
Solga: I am an artist and cultural imaginer who always stands on the edge. With this I mean that I do not stand in the center, but it also signifies a person who traverses borders. The work I have done reflects my position. And actually, I have lot of different kinds of backgrounds. I started my career as an actress with the Nottle Theatre Company to perform internationally. I began participating in international exchanges and performances with the production 'Hamlet of the East' at the Avignon Festival and many other festivals. After this, I worked at a social enterprise called Noridan, which makes recycled instruments and we participated in various performances, on theater stages and parades in festivals. My role at Noridan was creating new concepts for performances and also perform as an actress. I've been responsible for the overseas exchange part and have engaged in international arts activities for over 20 years. Since 2006, I have also served as an arts activist in the Peace Network group 'Imagine Peace,' planning various collaborative performances and artistic journeys as well.
The Festival Academy: Can you tell me a little bit more about the Song of Hope project?
Solga: The Song of Hope Project, Experimental Moving Festival in Asia, is an artistic collaboration project that began in 2013 with the peace network group ‘Imagine Peace’ by inviting Filipino artists Waway Saway, Necosia Balugto, and Rosalie Zerrudo to Korea. We collaborated with various festivals in Korea to introduce Asian artists who ask for hope through their music, dance, and art, and we shared with various artists and planners in Korea how their art is connected to society and how it creates change based on that foundation. The project has been carried out and was held over 43 days in a total of 5 regions, including Seoul, Gwangju, and Jeju, in various forms including traditional music, impromptu dance, lectures, and workshops. I was in charge of overall planning and collaborative performances at the same time.After this, the Song of Hope project was put on hold for quite some time.
At the 2019 Busan Asian Cultural Diversity Forum week [Beyond border], we were able to come up with an idea for a kind of festival we wanted to create through a small experiment.
This can be said to be the beginning of asking specifically what the meaning of a festival could be, and I began to think about methodologies and experimental thoughts about its form in more detail. We began to focus on how to talk about a sustainable society by going beyond the boundaries of things such as countries, art genres, and art and non-art.
I began to sense the need for Song of Hope even more firmly after being invited to <Arts_is_land> in Hong Kong in May 2023. <Arts_Is_Land> is a platform for young planners and artists to build relationships with the local community and demonstrate their creativity within it. It began as a process of finding new hope for the world. I gave a lecture about my community music work and international exchange work, and there I introduced Song of Hope.
The story inspired many participants and organizers, and the need for this project was finally realized when they said, ‘We need that hope.’ I thought that 'hope' is something that is only required in places where people are in despair or in the midst of crises(crisis) such as harsh environments, disasters, and climate crises. 'What should art and artists do?' It started with this question.
I also remember our heated discussion when I participated in the Greek Atelier in June 2023. I was impressed by the concerns about what role the festival plays in society and what kind of social existing foundation we should build our festival on. In particular, the words of Anton, a dancer and festival director from Ukraine, warmed my heart. “We don’t know when we will be able to celebrate or dance again in this war. I can't even think about it because my family and my community are dying. But at the same time, I should think. Nevertheless, we are somehow preparing that art should not stop, and when the war is over and everyone recovers from the wounds, art will be able to do what it should do.” The 2024 edition of Song of Hope was inspired by the stories shared by the people I met in 2023, allowing me to restart the project.
The Festival Academy: What role does the festival play in all this? Why do you organize a festival to discuss these themes?
Solga: With my background in art and social work, I don’t think we need to separate these kinds of things. During my travels in Europe, I joined the Rototom Sunsplash festival, a reggae festival celebrating Bob Marley and reggae music. I was watching people dancing and enjoying music all night. But the day after, in the morning, everybody was attending lectures and discussion on various social issues. It was shocking for me to see that festivals can do this, everybody disappearing in the bushes for discussions. And it made me realize for the first time that festivals are a space for discourse. Festivals are not limited to art, but they are a place that encompasses stories of people who make up society. I have continued to hold onto this notion within the question of what kind of festival I could develop. It remains a sort of puzzle, but this moment was another big inspiration to me.
When I asked a friend who is the director of another festival about this idea, they didn't get the concept. So, I was very hesitant to build up a new festival. I thought maybe I was not ready to set up a festival, but I kept going. I was concerned about making another way of making a festival. When I met an artist and leader of the Love and Peace Harmony Living festival, my long held thoughts about festivals were still not defined, but he tried to describe it in his words and he said; ‘a festival is not just a celebration of sharing art, it is a space for building community’. It was so clear to me, it is a place where people from different backgrounds come together to learn from each other, and gain inspiration for our lives.
I think that the best aspect is the driving force of a festival that allows people to go back to their own lives after a festival, plant a different world, different way of life, in each person's life. Maybe a festival is the best way I can create this kind of different moment, like an enlightenment moment. I feel that this form of culture is one that is very close to life; a broad space where people gather to contemplate on a better life, living and engaging with the lives of humans, natures and universe that we must protect. In this sense, art could be considered a part of the festival. In the space of our festival, art can be the countless inspirations that are presented to us. With the various ways to envision the world. Therefore, I believe that the characteristics of art align well with the idea of a festival. Art possesses an exceptional ability to foster community. This is why I'm thinking about connecting art and social issues, it cannot be separated. All of it is always in the same place. It is in our minds and in our society.
The Festival Academy: I was wondering, how are you going further now with the Song of Hope Festival? What are the next steps going to be? Do you have plans?
Solga: I am planning on doing the festival again this year. I think, actually until this year, it was kind of researching. To find the real clear question and clear answer what kind of Song of Hope I want to make, together with other friends. So we are still researching and then we will try to make more connections in Asia. We want to start from Asia, and maybe next time we can connect with other areas, like Europe, America and Africa. We will go to Indonesia, to find someone who wants to engage in this kind of movement. Song of Hope is kind of a movement I think, an artistic movement.
At the same time, I plan to make an Ecological Peace festival in Korea. I am thinking about inviting some of the people who I met during the process to engage them in this project too. People from Shanghai and other countries so that everybody can get together and we can talk about what hope means to them and to us. To talk about what kind of hope we can find in our own country and then how we can connect with this kind of theme together. So maybe it can be a kind of forum, but at the same time a festival. I'm preparing this with my colleagues and I'm sharing my ideas with my friends in Shanghai and Hong Kong. This can be a kind of starting point for the festival this year. Our vision for the festival is to share time.
The Festival Academy: I was also very curious about your story with The Festival Academy, you were a participant in the Atelier in Elefsina 2023:
I received a lot of inspiration while participating at The Festival Academy at the Atelier in Elefsina in Greece. Actually, I was surprised about The Festival Academy. I thought at first it was about how to make a festival. But our conversations, our discussions were not about the methods of making a festival, not the systems but rather about the discourse of festivals. It is about how we can make, and how we can engage in our society through festivals. This was really impactful for me, because my concern with Song of Hope festival is really connected to this. It really impacted me to get this kind of motivation. The topics of resources, sustainable art and festivals, along with the role of festivals in our society, resembles the vision I had for the Song of Hope Festival. We discussed our reflections on art and festivals, and I believe that we really learned a lot about each other. I believe that the best part of the festival is when we can invite more citizens into the space of discourse and discussion. Like you do at The Festival Academy: allowing people to enjoy, dance and sing, while learning about each other's lives. It is a new way.
Last year, when we did the Song of Hope Festival in Hong Kong, Hong Kong was so depressed by new policies and a new government. After the big demonstration, people got really depressed by all kinds of hyper problems and they didn't have any chance to get it out of their minds.
In the festival we asked them, just to catch up: what is your day-to-day life like? How do you feel about your days, just every day, normal life? So they could share about their life. And then we started to talk about our real mind, the real thinking, real concerns and real opinions. This started to make us different. And there was this connection, everybody was thinking similar things but could never taken it out of their minds. So it was a good starting point to share our thoughts with others. It was a chance to make a difference.
When I was in Greece during the Atelier in 2023, I already had my festival Song of Hope and now already for three years. It is really good to share about my festival again. And I am still ongoing in finding new concepts for my festival. So these questions here were again good for me, to clarify things for me. So thank you for inviting me to this interview.
It was
very nice talking with you too. Thank you so much for the conversation!