Advertise on podcast: Humans of Jeju

After studying art and East Asian culture in Lithuania, she came to Korea and has now made Jeju her home for the past 12 years. Having been interested in mythology since childhood, she has expanded her artistic world by illustrating the island’s myths and the stories of its people. Recently, she launched a small publishing house called “Noguri Books,” where she continues to create stories and picture books set in Jeju. After taking a break from creative work while raising her child, she is now focusing on making books that children in her family and local community can enjoy together. In this episode, we listen to the life and work of an illustrator who is bringing Jeju mythology into stories for today.

Born in Seoul, she has moved through New York and Jeju, choosing the direction of her life along the way. She has created film festivals, exhibitions, and humanities art spaces, consistently planning places where people can meet, and says she learned that relationships and stories are her greatest assets. These days, she is focusing on cultural education that connects generations and regions through study and teaching, hoping to create spaces where more people can learn and share together. She believes that wherever one lives, what matters most are people and stories, and wants to share the idea that each day of being alive is itself a form of art. In this episode, we listen to the journey of a planner who has shaped her own path across different cities.

Based in Jeju, she performs on stage interpreting blues and standard jazz in her own voice. With a solid vocal foundation and a wide expressive range, she moves freely from delicate tones to powerful energy in her singing. She views jazz as a conversation created together by musicians and the audience, shaping the mood and connection of each day into music on stage. Recently, she has been focusing on jazz ensemble work and vocal study, continuing to explore new musical attempts rooted in jazz. Moving between Jeju and Seoul, she balances performance and creative work while steadily refining her own musical identity.

Guitarist and vocalist Yoo Hyun Sang and keyboardist Lee Yoo Jeong perform together as a music duo based in Jeju. The two first met as band members in 2023, where they developed their musical chemistry, and later began performing under the name KITA & OLGEN after collaborating on original songs. Centered on acoustic guitar and keyboard, their music blends folk-inspired sounds with a range of tones, expressing thoughts and emotions discovered in everyday life with sincerity and restraint. Their songwriting is shaped by a habit of closely observing ordinary days and drawing stories from within those moments. Rooted in Jeju, they continue to reflect the people and experiences of the island in their music while expanding their activities through live performances and recording projects.

She began her musical journey by learning the cello from her mother, a cellist, and was deeply drawn to the process of making music after watching Yo-Yo Ma’s Inspired by Bach project at the age of eleven. After moving to Vienna for her studies, she set personal goals to grow from a performer into a musician, and ultimately into a more thoughtful human being, choosing conducting as a way to understand music beyond the level of individual performance. While a performer focuses on their own part, she sees the conductor as someone who shapes the overall flow of the orchestra and defines where the music is heading. Spending seventeen years in Austria led her to understand music as something inseparable from everyday life, a perspective that continues to influence her interpretations and working approach. She places greater importance on communication than on interpretation, focusing on sharing the direction and purpose of the music with the musicians. Her debut at the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna, conducting Ravel’s La Valse, marked a turning point when she realized she could tell her own story through music. She is currently working with the Jeju Philharmonic Orchestra to build a distinctive sound and a strong sense of ensemble.

A Canadian couple who run a sourdough pizza restaurant called Doughboy in Gujwa, Jeju. They first built their experience in hospitality while working together at a pub restaurant in the United Kingdom, then spent several years traveling and living across Europe and Asia. After briefly returning to Canada during the pandemic, they chose to begin a new chapter of life in Jeju and opened Doughboy in Gujwa in 2023. Their pizzas are made with naturally fermented dough instead of commercial yeast, and they focus on preparing ingredients and processes in house. They now live in Jeju with their three Jindo dogs while running the restaurant and building their daily life on the island.

He is a folk musician based in Jeju who writes songs and performs on stages around the island. Growing up between Korea and the United States, he creates music that blends American folk traditions with Korean sensibilities. With guitar and voice at the center of his music, he writes songs about the irony of life and the dilemmas people face. He now runs a multicultural arts space and guesthouse in Namwon, Jeju, with his wife, organizing performances and cultural events. He also collaborates with local musicians to create projects inspired by themes such as climate change, farming, and the lives of haenyeo.

She moved from Seoul to Seogwipo and has been running Home Meals of the World for nine years. Every Friday, she presents a single home-style dish from a different country, recreating flavors she encountered during her travels through her own recipes. Since childhood, her favorite food has always been her mother’s cooking, and she continues to use that standard as the foundation of her work, minimizing artificial seasonings and focusing on the natural taste of ingredients. She prepares ingredients on Thursday night and opens the restaurant only after tasting the dish alone on Friday morning and feeling fully confident in its flavor. While studying cuisines from around the world, she finds joy in learning how the same ingredients can be used differently across cultures. Recently, she has been planning a new space centered on pairing food with wine.

performer rooted in pansori, she moves fluidly between tradition and contemporary stages. She first began with Gyeonggi folk songs before deepening her path through pansori, shaping her voice over years of rigorous training and self-discipline. Today, she works with various ensembles including Korean Gypsy Sound Sorikete, Jeju Bille Ensemble, Gugakdan Neona-deuri, and Tal-gutpae Jeju Durunanum, engaging in traditional gugak, crossover projects, and Jeju-based music. Since relocating to Jeju, she has expanded her repertoire to include works inspired by the island&s nature, haenyeo culture, and the history of April 3rd, weaving local narratives into her performances. Through her solo recital Hogahochang, she has explored the depth of pansori, while also developing original compositions that bring poetry and Jeju stories into new musical forms. Recently, she became a trainee of the Jeju Folk Song Preservation Society, designated as National Intangible Cultural Heritage No. 95, continuing to deepen her study of Jeju&s traditional songs and broadening her artistic voice within the island&s cultural landscape.

She is a haenyeo in her sixth year of diving at Iho Tewoo Beach, documenting the landscapes of Jeju both above and below the sea with a camera attached to her tewak. While diving, she has continuously recorded marine life and the everyday rhythms of the haenyeo community, paying particular attention to the lives of elder haenyeo, including her mother. As a member of the coral research team at the Marine Citizen Science Center Paran, she conducts monthly coral monitoring around Munseom and Beomseom, documenting changes in the sea through photographs. Experiencing the realities of the ocean and the signs of climate change firsthand led her to a firm conviction that these moments must be recorded. Encounters with underwater waste and damaged marine ecosystems have given her documentation a clearer sense of direction. She has since taken part in documentaries, broadcasts, and citizen science projects as a witness to the sea, sharing Jeju’s ocean from the perspective of a haenyeo. More recently, she has also been involved in the Life on Jejuproject, listening to and connecting the stories of village elders and fellow haenyeo. Going forward, she hopes to compile these voices and lived experiences into a book that preserves the language and texture of haenyeo life and continues to be read over time.

Living in Jeju, he records life on the island through words and voice. Moving between radio and podcasts, he travels across Jeju, sharing stories of its people and villages. He studied fine art, but entered broadcasting through voice acting, later working in news production and editing at a major network in Seoul before relocating to the island. These days, he supports his wife as she pursues her path as a haenyeo, while building relationships within the village community through action rather than words. Moving across broadcasting, education, and community life, he continues to create stories rooted in Jeju.

She was born and raised in Switzerland and has been living in Korea for over a decade. What began as travel and personal connections gradually turned into a decision to stay. She is now based in Jeju, working as a freelance illustrator. She collaborates with international publishers, focusing mainly on book covers and interior illustrations, often drawing figures and imaginative scenes rooted in literature and mythology. Her work is primarily based on analogue painting using acrylics on paper, followed by minimal digital adjustments after completion. Alongside this, she continues to document Jeju’s landscapes in sketchbooks, transforming them into prints and handmade art zines. Looking ahead, she plans to develop projects that reinterpret Korean and Jeju folklore through her own fantasy illustration language, as well as a book collecting her drawings made on the island.

Jung Boram worked in the fashion and clothing industry in Seoul for over ten years. Seeking possibilities beyond industry-driven fashion, he moved to Jeju to explore clothing made in closer relationship with nature. He now grows organic cotton in Gwangpyeong-ri, Andeok-myeon, and works across the entire process from seeds to thread, fabric, and finished garments. Early in his life on the island, he spent a month walking Jeju without a mobile phone, an experience that became a turning point in how he saw the land and its people. From that time, he shaped the idea of “doing fashion through agriculture,” connecting natural materials and inspiration directly to design. Mokhwaoreum is not just a farm, but a place where farming, making, festivals, and exchange come together, as he continues to experiment with sustainable markets and new ways of working.

Originally from Poland, she has lived in Korea for 17 years and has been based in Jeju for the past four, building her daily life on the island. She first came to Korea on a government scholarship, later settling through work and marriage, and eventually chose Jeju after experiencing burnout from corporate life in Seoul. A close encounter with haenyeo during her travels left a strong impression, leading her to write a novel inspired by their lives and, ultimately, to move to Jeju herself. While walking along the shore, she began collecting colorful shells, which grew into a craft practice using materials gathered from the Jeju sea to create everyday objects such as norigae and bookmarks. As interest in her work led to sales, she expanded into one-day classes and offline events, continuing to find new ways to introduce the story of Jeju’s shells to a wider audience.

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 modern audiences. The name Insphere combines inspiration and atmosphere, reflecting a vision of spaces that connect people, art and technology, and tradition and the future. Since settling in Jeju, the island’s myths, rituals, and rhythms of life have naturally shaped her work, with digital technology used as a tool to reveal what cannot be seen. Her practice often transforms space itself through light and media, becoming a central element in performances and exhibitions. Grounded in collaboration with local artists and a commitment to creating sustainable cultural work, Insphere is now preparing to connect Jeju with a wider global audience.