“We use what we call ‘aunt wisdom’”

A selection of Korea’s most exciting contemporary artists has been chosen for this year’s Korean Artists Today. This is a long-term project that selects a group of artists each year based on their potential for global success. The full list can be found here.

The Rice Brewing Sisters Club was founded in 2018 by Hyemin Son, Aletheia Hyun-Jin Shin, and Soyoon Ryu. Although each are artists in their own right, the trio remains the center of this ever-changing collective, united by what they describe as “a shared interest in socially-oriented practice and in creating collaborative, relationship-based works.”

Underlying all of the sisters’ activities is the core concept of “social fermentation,” a fluid term that expands the notion of fermentation beyond biochemical brewing to include community activities and conceptual art. “We started with projects to make fermented foods and drinks, often using traditional methods or what we call ‘auntie wisdom,'” they explain. “But then we expanded that definition to a social form: cooking, writing, growing plants, biolab experiments, and documenting oral histories. Social fermentation provides a different story for each project.”

To this end, the sisters have collaborated with brewers, farmers, storytellers, artists, scientists and writers, as well as community organizations inside and outside South Korea. This includes workshops on making rice wine with Nuruk (yeast) and local fruits (Chew, chew, spit, spit2019); in collaboration with Sister’s Garden, an organization of women farmers practicing indigenous agriculture (Soil-Soil-Land2020–21); and in 2020, filming a folk story film with the residents of the mountain village of Deokgeo-ri.

Now they have turned their attention to the ocean. “Fermentation takes place in all areas of the environment: in the air, on land and also in the sea, with marine microorganisms,” they say. “That’s why we started working with a seaweed called agar-agar, which has many uses and grows profusely on the coasts of South Korea and Japan.” The sisters’ installation, Seaweeds, bare hands, tangled gaetbawi for the Busan Biennale 2022 was the result of research into the seaweed that grows on the coast of Busan and a deep exploration of the spiritual beliefs of the female Hanover Divers harvesting the agar-agar by hand. Holobiont Galaxy (2023–24) at MMCA in Seoul, the sisters worked with laboratory technicians to create sculptural objects made from agar-agar as well as a living algae colony, all of which were safely returned to the sea at the end of the show.

According to the Rice Brewing Sisters Club, agar-agar has the potential to “create a whole new paradigm of what plastic is, how it is made, and how it is used.” This realization led to the creation of Rice Brewing Sisters Production, a commercial arm through which the collective hopes to support its future endeavors by distributing and selling low-cost agar-agar-based products, including home production kits.

• Rice Brewing Sisters Club has participated in exhibitions including Project Hashtag 2023 at MMCA Seoul; Busan Biennale 2022; Korean Cultural Centre UK; and Nam June Paik Art Center, Yongin