How Has Island Culture Changed Before and After the Jindo Bridge? Jindo Society International Conference

An international academic conference will explore how music and everyday culture in the Jindo area changed around the construction of the Jindo Bridge.
Jindo County and the Jindo Society announced that they will hold the “2026 Jindo Society International Conference” on the 6th and 7th at the Jindo County Intangible Heritage Transmission Center and a seminar room at the National Namdo Gugak Center.
The conference, titled “Before and After the Jindo Bridge: Reading Jindo Folk Culture and Its Future Through the Keith Howard Archive,” will feature Keith Howard, an emeritus professor at the University of London in the UK, as its keynote speaker.
Professor Howard will give a lecture at 1 p.m. on the 6th titled “At the Divide Between Before and After the Jindo Bridge: Music and Life in Jindo, 1982–1984.” Drawing on records related to music and everyday culture collected in Jindo in the early 1980s, he will examine changes in the local community around the construction of the Jindo Bridge and the significance of island culture.
A conversation with Kyungsoo Jeon, an emeritus professor in the Department of Anthropology at Seoul National University and the Jindo Society’s founding president, will follow the lecture. Jindo Society President Lee Yun-seon will moderate the discussion, which will examine the effects of the Jindo Bridge’s construction on island residents’ lives and culture and on the local community.
The conference will also feature presentations and discussions on topics including Jindo folk arts and performance culture, traditional games, ssitgimgut, and education for passing down traditions that connects villages and schools.
[email protected] Sun-Min Jung Reporter