Humans of Jeju

A creative artist who explores the intersection of traditional arts and digital technology, reinterpreting the emotions and narratives of tradition through a contemporary lens. She leads Insphere, a creative studio that brings together media art, performance, and digital technology, founded from her background in traditional dance and a desire to help its inner stories resonate more deeply with mo...

Living in Jeju, he continues to balance work, everyday life, and music side by side. Having been in Korea for over a decade, he now lives a life closely woven into the island’s daily rhythms. Drawing from his background as a musician active in Hongdae, he still steps onto the stage from time to time, keeping music as a steady part of his life. At home, he brews makgeolli, makes traditional soju, a...

Rooted in blues, folk, and rock, she has built a body of work that sings quietly but firmly about the textures of everyday life. Since her debut in 2005, she has spent two decades making music at her own pace, choosing her own language rather than following trends. Her low, resonant voice and restrained yet steady lyrics give her songs a lasting presence. In 2025, she released a special album mark...

Lael began making music after a self-written song video, shared during high school, unexpectedly drew attention. After becoming an adult, he set up his own workspace and taught himself how to write, record, and shape his sound independently. His music centers on melody and explores emotions tied to love, memory, and waiting. Both lyrics and melodies often begin with small moments from everyday lif...

She is a haenyeo diving in Yeongrak ri, Daejeong eup, Jeju, and also works as an interpreter and translator. After graduating from haenyeo school in 2024, she knocked on the doors of several villages and is now part of the Yeongrak ri haenyeo community. As she learned to dive as a form of work, going farther and deeper beyond her fear and hesitation toward the sea, her decision to live as a haenye...

Born in Russia and now based in Jeju, she creates picture books as both a writer and illustrator. When she first encountered Jeju’s landscape, she began to wonder how she could faithfully capture the scenes before her, and that question opened a new direction in her work. After years of illustrating textbooks, she settled in Jeju with the desire to craft stories that unfold page by page in her own...

She bridges the original taste of cacao learned in Guatemala with the agricultural character of Jeju. The day her handmade chocolates and caramels sold out at Bellong Market, the intention to capture the essence of food in her products became unmistakable. Together with local merchants, she leads “Craft in Sehwa,” recording and expanding the village’s craftsmanship and culture in fresh ways. Throu...

Boo Hyemi grew up in a home where work songs and folk melodies were part of everyday life, making her path into Jeju’s traditional singing a natural one. Through the unique rhythms of Jeju’s work songs, she conveys the daily lives of women and the emotional landscape of the island. She is active with the Jeju Traditional Folk Song Preservation Association, the Hana Art Korean Traditional Performin...

She is a founder who connects scattered moments of “useful time” in the city, linking people with the spaces they need. Through SpaceCloud, Korea’s leading shared-space platform, she has enabled tens of thousands of places across the country to be used by the hour, turning the idea of a lighter, more accessible city into reality. Her starting point was the difficulty of finding meeting rooms durin...

Originally from Michigan, USA, Stefania teaches English in Jeju while continuing her artistic practice. After a major turning point in her life, she came to the island and has since been learning how to begin again amid its sea, forests, and changing seasons. She enjoys drawing and working with pastels, often depicting people in dreamlike scenes, believing that the act of working with color helps...

Nine years after moving to Jeju, Iris has become someone who tells the island’s stories through color. Her studio, Color Lab Jeju, collects the hues found in the island’s nature—the blue of the sea, the green of the forest, and the earthy brown of volcanic soil—and transforms them into design, education, and everyday creations. For Iris, color is more than what we see; it is a language that connec...

Jaeha Ahn and Yena Kim are science communicators who translate scientific ideas into everyday conversation in a uniquely engaging way. Located in Mureung-ri, Daejeong, Jeju, You In One is a science communication café that conveys the message that humans are part of nature, creating a space where people and the environment can learn together. Jaeha began his career studying insects and later expand...

She began her career in Seoul as both a teacher and a painter, but the pandemic prompted her to seek “a life with a little more room to breathe,” leading her to settle in Jeju. Now based in a small village on the island’s western coast, she continues to explore themes of nature, community, and self through her paintings. Using oils, oil bars, and gel stone, she creates textured works that carry th...

Erik Moynihan is the co-founder and CEO of Magpie Brewing Company, established in 2012. Born in Canada, he first came to Korea on a working holiday and later settled in Seoul, where he opened Magpie in Itaewon and Haebangchon as a community-centered beer space, becoming one of the pioneers of Korea’s craft beer movement. After founding the Jeju brewery in 2016, he relocated to the island with his...

A leading voice in preserving Jeju folk songs, she earned the title of myeongchang after winning the Grand Prize at the 26th National Folk Song Contest in 2009. Since 1997, she has studied under the late master singer Go Seong-ok and later opened a folk song class in Dongheung-dong, Seogwipo, to teach younger generations. She has also brought folk songs to local elders and welfare centers through...

Choi Jong-ryong is a film director and screenwriter. His feature debut The Melody of Suyeon (Waterdrop) tells the story of children left alone in the world who struggle to protect themselves, and it drew attention by winning two awards at the 2023 Busan International Film Festival. Originally a literature major in creative writing, he spent years writing poetry before discovering filmmaking throug...

Based in Jeju, she focuses on fireflies as her main subject, capturing the nights of Gotjawal and the island’s forests. Her work conveys the ecology of nature and the life of light. In her exhibitions, she collaborates with local communities and practices responsible presentation. Each year she photographs during the short firefly season, and in the off-season she studies Jeju’s landscapes and hab...

Pianist Moon Hyojin and bandoneon player Rim Sinai are the musicians leading the ensemble “Mulbit” together. Moon Hyojin is a composer and performer who captures Jeju’s landscapes and history through music, presenting projects that embody the voices of haenyeo and messages of peace. With the Jeju Youth Chorus, she performed the “Peace Requiem” on international stages, and this September she has be...

She is a planner who views coffee as a language. After years of working in Seoul’s specialty coffee industry and experiencing numerous brands and projects, she settled in Jeju in 2019 and began to explore what it means to create planning that allows people to live together. Seeking ways for Jeju’s small coffee brands to thrive sustainably, she initiated Korea Coffee Week. This event has grown into...

A Western painter and migrant haenyeo, she began diving about four years ago in Taeheung 2-ri, a seaside village in Namwon-eup, Seogwipo on the southern coast of Jeju. Her studies in painting took her from Chugye University for the Arts in Seoul to Chelsea College of Arts in London, and in 2021 she graduated from the 7th class of the Beophwan Haenyeo School. The following year, she joined the Taeh...

He runs the channel "Jeju Eddy," sharing stories of Jeju travel and local life with 140,000 subscribers. Born and raised in Busan, he first came to Jeju in 2017 as a public health doctor, which began his connection with the island, and later he naturally decided to settle down here. His main profession is Korean medicine, and after working in local clinics during his military service, he...

Kim Bo ram is a traditional singer who carries Jeju’s folk songs and labor songs into the present with a modern sensibility. She first came to the island in 2006 after graduating from university for a performance project, and in 2013 she settled permanently after marriage. At Seoul Institute of the Arts, she majored in traditional performance arts, studying samulnori, pungmul, and mask dance while...

Youngsook Kim and Nils Clauss are an international couple who have made Jeju their home for the past eight years. Youngsook, a self-taught baker, runs Breadpit, a baking studio specializing in naturally leavened bread, and is also active as an essay writer. Nils Clauss, who studied film in Germany and later learned cinematography in Korea, works as a filmmaker and photographer across a range of pr...

Karen Stritzinger is a creative technologist and founder of a software company based in North Carolina, USA. Through virtual reality and immersive media, she crafts stories that connect technology with environmental and social themes. In 2020, she adopted two Jindo-mix rescue dogs from Jeju Island—an experience that sparked her interest in the island and its people. Inspired by Jeju’s nature and t...

Kim Hyung-jun began his career as an advertising designer in Seoul and became one of Korea’s first-generation web designers. Drawn to the ocean through freediving, he moved to Jeju with his wife and now works as both the head of the local fisheries association and a haenam, or male sea diver, in Sinsan-ri, Seogwipo. His wife became a haenyeo first, and after helping her at sea, he naturally found...