Princess Bari
Hwang Rushi, a leading scholar in Korean and Asian folk traditions and shamanic rituals, earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and broadcasting from Ewha Womans University and completed her doctorate in Korean literature at the same institution, with a dissertation titled A Study on the Shaman Ritual Drama. Since 1976, Hwang Rushi has conducted extensive fieldwork on Korean shamanism, and beginning in 1988, she expanded her research to include comparative studies of Asian shamanic traditions through on-site investigations in Japan, Myanmar, Taiwan, and Vietnam. From 1988 to 2016, she served as Professor in the Department of Media Literature at Catholic Kwandong University and is now serving an honorary professorship. In 2005, she authored both the application and video script for the Gangneung Danoje Festival’s inscription as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. She went on to serve as the eighth President of the Society of Korean Oral Literature in 2007 and as a Cultural Heritage Committee Member under the Korea Heritage Service in 2011. Her major publications include Korean Shamanism and the Mudang (Moonumsa, 1992), Stories of Our Shamans (Pulbit, 2000), Jindo Ssitgimgut: National Intangible Cultural Heritage No. 72 (Hwasan Munhwa, 2001), Paldo-gut (Shamanic Rituals Across Korea) (Daewonsa, 2011), and The Protagonists Behind the Stage (Wings of Knowledge, 2021). In recent years, she has turned her attention to reimagining shamanic rituals in theatrical form. She has adapted the representative shamanic myth Danggeumaegi for the stage and directed performances such as Gut with Us and Dance, Dano, and Divine Ecstasy.
Research Title Princess Bari
Category Essay
Edition The 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale
Author Hwang Rushi
The English version of this essay can be found in e-flux journal #156, a special issue for the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale Séance: Technology of the Spirit.
Link: https://www.e-flux.com/journal/156/6776764/princess-bari
It will also be available on this SMB website from mid-October.
This essay is originally commissioned for the 13th Seoul Mediacity Biennale Catalogue, Séance: Technology of the Spirit (Seoul: Seoul Museum of Art, Mediabus, 2025), scheduled for publication on October, 2025. With the author’s consent, it is being published in advance on the Seoul Mediacity Biennale website and e-flux Journal. No part of this essay may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, Seoul Museum of Art and Mediabus, Seoul.
© 2025 the author, copyright holders, Seoul Museum of Art and Mediabus, Seoul.
