Humans of Jeju

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.

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, and tends a small garden, valuing time spent learning through his hands. He is also well acquainted with local markets, neighborhood eateries, and the quieter paths of Jeju that most people pass by. Seeing Jeju through the lens of daily living rather than tourism, he moves through the island at his own pace and in his own rhythm.

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 marking the 20th anniversary of her debut. The album reflects both a careful look back on the road she has traveled and a clear intention to continue living and singing through music. Years of moving between the stage and daily life have shaped Kang Huh Dalrim into an artist of deeper focus and quiet strength.

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 life, developed through a largely solo process while actively incorporating feedback from others. Starting with his debut track “4AM,” and followed by the Christmas release “Dream of You,” he has translated personal stories into music. Looking ahead, he plans to expand his musical world through a long-term project that connects multiple EPs into a single narrative.

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 haenyeo became clear. She says the work of a haenyeo is deeply personal, shaped by each diver’s breath and limits, yet always grounded in collective safety and responsibility, reflected in the rule that no one dives alone. Since becoming a haenyeo, she has worked as an interpreter on haenyeo related projects in collaboration with the Jeju Provincial Government’s Haenyeo Culture Division, and also served as an interpreter at the GIAHS certification ceremony held in Rome. She is now preparing an English language haenyeo podcast titled Haenyeo Hangout, exploring new ways to carry haenyeo stories farther into the world.

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 voice. Meeting the world of the haenyeo led her to observe the skills and presence of women who work in the sea, which grew into the Little Haenyeo series. The haenyeo she portrays are not symbolic figures but people shaped by real labor, real breath, and the passage of generations. Jeju’s light, wind, and terrain continue to offer subjects that return to her daily practice. She hopes to keep expanding Jeju’s stories in new forms and share them with readers in meaningful ways.

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. Through fair trade, she keeps practicing the value of connection, linking Korea and Guatemala, one family to another. Drawing on the care learned from raising five children, she hopes Jeju becomes a place where the next generation can grow their dreams, and she continues to build her brand with that belief.

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 Performing Arts Group, and the Jeju Work Song Permanent Performance Team, bringing performances to schools and villages where audiences join her in simple refrains and gestures. By sharing the stories and emotions behind songs like “Eodo Sana” and “Manggeun Sori,” she offers encounters that feel closer to lived experience than passive listening. Recently, she has been exploring short-form videos and modern creative approaches to open Jeju’s sound to broader audiences. Looking ahead, she hopes to form a children’s folk ensemble in Jeju and create new songs that people everywhere can hum and carry with them.

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 during her first job, and today she works between Seoul and Jeju, collaborating with local partners while growing the value of spaces with her team. What began as a small experiment connecting a dozen friends’ spaces has expanded into a platform that now reaches the UK, helping users find the right place at the right moment, and helping hosts make use of unused time. She often describes space as “a business of selling time,” and continues to build fair, flexible access through technology. Looking ahead, she hopes to shape community-living projects in Jeju—places that embody a way of living together—and imagines the island becoming a destination for social developers from around the world. Moving between work and life, between local and global, she keeps designing spaces that grow more alive the more people use them.

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 her find calm and make sense of life. As a teacher, she finds the greatest reward in her connection with students and is steadily preparing to pursue art education more deeply in the future. A vegan for nearly fourteen years, she carries her values into daily life through Jeju’s restaurants, traditional markets, and thrift shops. She especially loves nature-filled places like Gwakji and Hamdeok beaches, the trails of Jeolmul Forest, and the cherry blossom-lined streets near Jeju University. She believes that forming genuine connections, even in unfamiliar places, is what makes a city feel like home—and she continues to quietly write her next chapter here on the island.