Wild Fermentation: Microbes, Fermentation & Makgeolli with Yong Ha Jeong

YONG HA JEONG: WILD FERMENTATION

Los Angeles-based nonprofits Active Cultures and GYOPO are pleased to present a special collaboration called Wild Fermentation, centering the work of makgeolli (Korean alcohol) brewer Yong Ha Jeong, who works primarily with wild yeast fermentation. Informed by historical, cultural, and scientific research, Jeong’s brew practice spotlights wild microorganisms, producing to delicious effect a rich exploration in unpredictability, history, and identity. Jeong investigates the history of food and sool to inform expanding constructions of heritage and traditionality within the context of Korea. With a shared commitment to connecting art, culture, and community through accessible programming that allows us to think critically about our daily experience, Active Cultures and GYOPO are delighted to collaborate together for the first time.

In a live online broadcast in March 2021, Active Cultures and GYOPO hosted Yong Ha Jeong, along with scholars Victoria Lee and Charles Kollmer, who together explored the industrialization of sool and the way nationalism shapes conceptions of wild and pure fermentation. A recording of the program is available online on Active Cultures’ and GYOPO’s websites.

Wild Fermentation: Microbes, Fermentation & Makgeolli

How do paradigms in biological sciences and national identity shape alcohol brewing practices, and even dictate the classification of microorganisms? How do notions of purity and diversity enable certain concepts in alcohol production while disallowing others?

Yong Ha Jeong, with historians of science Victoria Lee and Charles Kollmer, will discuss historical conditions spanning from the late 19th-century to the present that have shaped alcohol fermentation practices in Korea and Japan. We welcome all folks to join us as we share a drink of makgeolli during the talk. Los Angeles-based wine shop Domaine LA is offering limited quantities of small-batch Hana Makgeolli from (name) for purchase, with an option for delivery!

This event is free and open to the public and features live captioning and ASL interpretation.
Order your own bottle of Hana Makgeolli to enjoy with the talk from Domaine LA!

Yong Ha Jeong

is a Korean traditional music researcher turned sool (Korean alcohol), brewer, Yong Ha was introduced to the world of Korean wild fermentation in 2012. Since then, she has studied Korean brewing technology informed by the alchemy of nuruk, a coarsely ground grain fermentation starter containing wild microorganisms. Central to her practice is the collaborative co-creation with wild microorganisms in nuruk and the indigenization of Korean sool in Los Angeles as she prepares for a 주막형태 (traditional Korean tavern-style) brewery.

Victoria Lee

is an assistant professor of history at Ohio University and currently a fellow at the Institut d’études avancées de Paris. She received her Ph.D. in the history of science from Princeton. She is the author of The Arts of the Microbial World: Fermentation Science in Twentieth-Century Japan, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press in fall 2021.

Charles Kollmer

is a historian of microbiology, biotechnology, and biomedicine. His research focuses on how humans have repurposed living things as tools in industry, agriculture, medicine, and science, and how this shaped scientific knowledge of life. Currently, Kollmer is the Ahmanson Postdoctoral Instructor in History of Biology at the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Caltech. Kollmer’s Ph.D. dissertation, “From Elephant to Bacterium: Microbial Culture Techniques and Chemical Orders of Nature, 1875–1946,” is a history of how microbial culture techniques recast nature’s order in chemical terms.

ABOUT ACTIVE CULTURES

Active Cultures is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the artistic exploration of our global foodways—the attitudes, practices, and rituals around what we consume. We believe that by nurturing vital collaborations between artists, chefs, food practitioners, and their communities, we can illuminate global foodways and feed experimental artistic practice simultaneously, to build stronger connections of empathy, curiosity, and care among us all. We not only commission work by a diverse community of artists and chefs, but also convene a rich network of food workers, scholars, and activists around some of the most pressing issues of our time.

http://active-cultures.org
Instagram: @activeculturesla
Twitter: @activecultures_