Pohang City Opens Cultural City Citizen Festival 'Poponakrak'

27 Cultural Spaces and Citizen Communities Host Authentic Local Program 'Munhwapanjang'

Exhibitions and Discussions Showcase 2023 Cultural City Achievements Until December 2

The Pohang Cultural Foundation Cultural City Center opened the 2023 Cultural City Performance Sharing Citizen Festival ‘Poponakrak’ on the 25th at the old Fisheries Cooperative Frozen Warehouse (Seonchak-ro, Pohang City).

On the 25th, the Pohang Cultural Foundation Cultural City Center opened the citizen festival 'Poponakrak' to share the achievements of this year's cultural city. (Group photo of Samsepan citizen community)

This performance sharing citizen festival began with a flag performance where the citizens themselves took the lead in hosting the festival. The opening ceremony proceeded with reflections from cultural city groups and witty greetings from guests.

As part of the Poponakrak event, the ‘Cultural Market’ by the Samsepan Citizen Community, held over two days on the 25th and 26th, featured a variety of experiences, markets, roulette events, and performances reflecting the identity of each community, receiving enthusiastic responses from citizens.

The Cultural Market included ▲making worry dolls with woodworking by Jukjang Duma ▲strawberries and seedling planting by the Native Seed Library ▲oil therapy by Shingwang Hyanggi Village Study Room ▲thank you card making by the reading group Gomgom ▲frame making using marine waste by Yugang Seodang ▲and gwamegi by the Guryongpo Haenyeo Sarangbang, providing a place to experience the ‘real local’ culture of various regions within Pohang City, gaining popularity.

Additionally, with abundant food offerings such as sandwich and crepe making, coffee, and Ssanghwa tea, the festival was designed as a program that could embrace all generations from children to youth and seniors, attracting about 1,500 citizens over two days.

At the Cultural Market, not only were individual group achievements shared, but through mutual communication and collaborative activities among groups, a network traversing the city was formed. A community dance was presented, creating a unique scene where participants and citizens mingled together.

Moreover, during this Poponakrak, the Yeongilman Art & Tech Lab Open Studio, where the production process of the Grand Marionette work to be unveiled on December 14th could be observed, was held for two days, drawing keen interest from citizens participating in the docent program.

Following this, the Poponakrak program will include exhibitions of cultural city participating groups’ achievements, individual projects by the youth collaboration working group Synstealer, and roundtable discussions among cultural city groups to set the next vision for the cultural city development project.

The exhibition opening hours are from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and on December 1st, a docent tour will be conducted where staff or participants will directly explain the entire exhibition program.

Park Chang-jun, head of the Pohang Cultural Foundation Cultural City Center, said, “As this is a place to share the activities of citizens and artists through the cultural city and to move forward to the next cultural city, we hope many citizens will visit.”

For more details, please check the Pohang Cultural Foundation website and SNS promotion platforms.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.