Fairy Tales Reborn Through the Brush of a Koryo-saram Artist

Victor Moon, Settled in Gwangju, Holds Special Exhibition

World-renowned artist Victor Moon, who settled in the Gwangju Koryo-saram Village, is presenting a special exhibition at the invitation of the Incheon Korean Immigration History Museum.

According to Koryo-saram Village on May 11, the exhibition is titled "Davnym Davno" (Давным-давно), which means "Once Upon a Time" in Russian. Through traditional fairy tales reinterpreted from the perspective of Koryo-saram, the exhibition explores "Tradition, Transformation, and Hybridity: The World of Koryo-saram Fairy Tales."

World-renowned Koryo-saram art master Victor Moon, who settled in the Gwangju Koryo-saram Village, presents a special exhibition upon invitation from the Incheon Korean Immigration History Museum. Photo by Koryo-saram Village

The exhibition features stories familiar to Koreans, such as "The Tiger and the Dried Persimmon," "Four Cotton Sellers, Four Cat Legs," and "The Snake Husband," but these tales take on entirely new forms through Moon's artistry. Each character is infused with diasporic imagination?for example, a solemn tiger, an exotic cat, and a donkey grinning with large teeth.

These works are original illustrations from the fairy tale book "The Magic Spring" (Волшебный родник), published in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 2019. The stories were written by third-generation Koryo-saram Konstantin Yugai, with illustrations by Victor Moon.

"The Magic Spring" is the second fairy tale book to emerge from the Koryo-saram community in Central Asia in over 80 years, following their forced relocation by Stalin in 1937. The book, which revives Korean folk tales in a foreign land, is regarded as an attempt to capture the memories and identity of the diaspora through art.

Victor Moon was born in 1951 in Ushtobe, Kazakhstan. After majoring in painting at a national university, he worked as a stage artist at the Koryo Theater. He now resides in the Gwangju Koryo-saram Village, where he operates the Victor Moon Art Museum and documents the history of forced migration and the independence movement through his paintings.