ABSTRACT
Using the concept of liminality, Victor Turner defines ‘festival’ as a social ritual that tests the symbols and values of a community as well as its transgression and deviation. Against this theoretical backdrop, various small-scale festivals hosted in 2017 to replace the critical space of BIFF show the potential of ‘festival as a social drama’, highlighting Korean citizens’ own drama as socio-political and cultural subjects. This article focuses on the Redline Film Festival and Seoul Photo Festival. The ‘Redline Festival’ extensively covered various visual works that specifically pursued strong political themes, hitherto suppressed under the previous Park Geun-hye administration. Along with My Candlelight, the citizen collaboration project comprising a media workshop and an art exhibition by Korean citizens who had participated in the Candlelight protest, the Redline Festival thematically leveraged the participatory role of the camera in the social context. As Lewis Hine’s concept of ‘social documentary’ was also used in recognition of the ‘Sewol Ferry tragedy’, the Redline Festival sought to widen the spectrum of a state community and question the relationship among the state, individual, and community. The word ‘Redline’ was opted to mean ‘the demand that a party in negotiation shall not be forced into submission at a time of discord’, which also characterizes the socio-political climate of Korea in recent years.
