Putting forward a Global Peace Diplomacy Network for K-Art Song Storytellers
The K-Art Song Cultural Bridge Project uses cross-cultural narratives embedded in music to foster empathy, invoke compassion, and emphasize our common humanity.
Our Story
The K-Art Song (Korean Art Song) Project, affiliated with The Narrative Transformation Lab at the Carter School, uses storytelling and collective narrative discourse to cultivate a shared experiences of the stories embedded in Korean Art Songs.
Serving as a nexus model that interweaves musical performance with participants’ narrative exchanges, the project aims to evoke empathy, foster moral imagination, and contribute to both peacebuilding and community building. In this way, K-Art Song can serve as a “bridge” across different cultural narratives, fostering cross-cultural communication through creativity and imagination.
Learn more about the first Korean ArtPop Storytelling Workshop held at George Mason University on September 25, 2024.
Who We Are
We are a team of artists, peacemakers, and scholars who are dedicated to building a more peaceful world through music and storytelling.
Our project is made up of an interdisciplinary collective of musicians, storytellers, and practitioners working at the intersection of music, peacebuilding, and cultural diplomacy. Our team brings together expertise from the fields of Peace and Conflict Studies, Korean Studies, Cultural Studies, History, International Studies, Arts and Humanities, and other multi-disciplinary fields.
By integrating artistic expression with dialogue-based methodologies, we explore how K-Art Song can serve not only as a cultural treasure but also as a medium for cross-cultural communication that can foster empathy, advance intercultural understanding, and contribute to sustainable peace.
What is Korean Art Song?
Transforming Korean poetry into vibrant narratives through music
Korean Art Song (K-Art Song) is a genre in which Korean poetry is translated into vibrant music. These songs bring individual and collective narratives to life through lyrical composition for both voice and piano. They are further expanded on and experimented with through diverse instrumental arrangements.
A History in Song
Originating during the Japanese colonization period and influenced by Western music, particularly the hymn tradition introduced by missionaries, K-Art Song continued to expand its resonance in the post-Korean War period, embracing rich and layered narratives that reflect the historical experiences of Korean communities.
Composers employed diverse techniques to convey both personal and collective memories within these turbulent historical contexts. While rooted in the classical art song tradition, recent composers in Korea and around the globe have begun blending popular sensibilities into Korean Art Songs—bridging generations and expanding the genre’s reach to wider global audiences.
Building Resonance through Emotional Connection
K-Art Songs often carry deep emotions of consolation, hope, resilience, and compassion for humanity. Vibrant stories of ordinary people—encompassing universal human experiences such as family, love, and everyday life—are deeply embedded in K-Art Song, fostering empathy and conveying a resonance that transcends nations and borders.
The stories and poetry embedded in Korean Art Song are the underpinning for our theory of change.
We see Korean Art Song as a transformative medium for bridging cultural narratives, with the purpose of fostering intercultural understanding and empathy, in turn leading to community-building and solidarity across many lived experiences.
What We Do
Our scope of work has three key pillars, all of which are oriented toward the practice of peace and community-building through the unique musicking tradition of K-Art Song.
K-Art Song Storytelling Workshops
These workshops provide a participatory space where K-Art Song performance and collective storytelling meet, one where audiences from many cultural backgrounds co-experience Korean Art Song stories and connect them with their own, unique narratives. In these workshops, we pair select K-Art Songs with specific themes in order to create a transformative discussion around the universal human spirit.
We aim to deliver storytelling workshops where audiences can engage their moral imaginations. In turn, we work to foster empathy by cultivating a dialogue space for peace and community-building.
Publications
(1) Blog Commentaries
The K-Art Song blog puts forward narrative case studies of the K-Art Song tradition and its embedded historical context. These explorations aim to stimulate dialogue open to artists across all stages of life, from emerging young talent to experienced and established creators, scholars from interdisciplinary fields, and practitioners in the cultural diplomacy field. All commentaries contribute to developing a better understanding of Korean Art Songs and their use for community-building and collective meaning-making.
(2) K-Art Song Narrative Transformation Reports
We aim to conduct research on the poetic and historical contexts behind Korean Art Songs, exploring how these narratives foster empathy through collective human experience. Furthermore, by capturing post-event observations of intercultural narrative discourse, we demonstrate how shared musical stories can foster cross-cultural empathy and deeper understanding through narrative transformation.
Global Peace Diplomacy Network
Through our project, we seek to create a peace diplomacy network for young scholars and singers of K-Art Song worldwide. Through both virtual and in-person connections, this youth network includes mentorship and collaborative projects that foster dialogue and creativity across borders.
Explore more about our initiatives
Project Director: Seung Gyo Kim ([email protected])
🌐 Website: www.k-artsongculturalbridgeproject.org
Find us on social media
External Partners
Interested in partnering with or supporting the K-Art Song Cultural Bridge Project?