Having just lost the last two blogs we think we have worked out now how to upload them correctly. I am writing this from the Tourist Information, which is at the bus station and not far from my motel - the Shangri-La.... and is rapidly becoming my second home. I came straight to Cheongju from Seoul, having decided to do this sometime flying over China at about five in the morning. All in all it was about twenty hours of travelling from London. I have been extremely fortunate in the friendliness and helpfulness of Koreans without whom I would not have mastered the transport system and now feel more confident in getting about.

I spent all of yesterday at the Biennial which is on two sites and additionally went to the craft museum which is occupied by a textile exhibition curated by Chunghie Lee, who is now back in the US. The whole experience is initially overwhelming - the event is hugely popular with Koreans and visitors range from vast numbers of schoolchildren to lots of business and official delegates, including North Koreans. The main site is like a small NEC and seems to be a legacy from the Olympics. It does all feel very institutional and this creates for me a lot of problems for the exhibits, which struggle to work with the spaces and display. The variety is also something of a shock, although I imagine this also makes it appealing to visitors. There is some work from British makers - Michael Brennand Wood, Takeshi Yasuda, Daniel Fisher, Eleanor Pritchard and Hiroshi Suzuki, who won a prize in the international competition. Unfortunately there is no catalogue and the labels only give the name of the maker, title of work and the material, so it is a bit of a guessing game to know where the makers are from, although I recognise some of the American makers such as Judy Onofrio and there is also a stand from the Canadian crafts federation. We are not allowed to take photographs, but I hope you will see from my successful (xx) uploading, that I have been surreptitiously snapping and intend to do more today.

In many ways the theme of slowness is more represented within the rhetoric than the work, which is interesting it itself and I have been photographing the text panels. It is hard to recognise whether the makers deliberately responded to the general themes or whether the work was selected and the fitted to it. Certainly the British makers and showing their standard work. The theme of slowness sits most closely with a general consensus on the process of making, rather than taking it as a conceptual starting point. The exhibition which is showcased in a pavilion on the theme 'the aesthetics of slowness' is their main tangible cultural treasure showcase showing work from deceased and living national treasures. In this context the aesthetic is not visual but rather about a tradition of making processes, value of traditional skills and forms, and the time that it takes to work yourself up the hierarchial and nuanced structure that it takes for a maker to reach this eminent position. The objects have great symbolic importance in Korean identity and watching television early this morning, I could see some of them - like to beautifully woven horsehair hats - in action. Again the simplest work and the most natural materials is the most successful combination.

The more I see, hear and experience the culture here, the more easy it is to understand the message behind the biennial - it is a culture and nation striving to succeed and pushes itself forward continuously. It communciates a strong belief in the value of its traditions and at the same time tries to connect this to its rapid change - it is interesting to see how this is done on television which is not something we would see in the UK - it is perhaps easier here because it appears a far more homogenous society. This is in a sense why the themes are given with such rhetoric and craft is seen to have such a significant role as a tool for doing this - it is certainly interesting to attend a craft event on this scale with so many government and other officials visiting and for craft to be seen to have this national relevance.

Anyway, I'm off back today to unpick and unpack the exhibition a little more and try and get over my culture shock. The content is very uneven and the mix often very odd, both in the representation of different disciplines - strong in ceramics, glass and certain areas of textiles - and weak in jewellery, metalwork and basketry, but I hope to have more time to reflect on individual work.

Let see if the pictures upload......