Ben Apfelbaum

KOREAN FESTIVAL 2018 @ TUMBALONG PARK

The annual Korean Festival was held at Tumbalong Park last week in glorious sunshine. The food stalls were doing a brisk trade in traditional Korean dishes with both Asian and non Asian customers.

Unlike most multicultural Festivals this Festival did not feature heavily traditional folk dancers in original costumes. However for those wishing to feel traditional there were dress-up costumes.

What appeared on stage was utterly contemporary. K-Pop is sweeping Korea and the world. Naturally,  the locals were ‘infected’ so the afternoon consisted of the younger generation participating in a giant K-Pop performance with lip-synching.Not a shred of politics just the Korean diaspora and other visitors having a thoroughly good time enjoying the delicious food and the lively entertainment.

The annual Korean Festival was held at Tumbalong Park last week in glorious sunshine. The food stalls were doing a brisk trade in traditional Korean dishes with both Asian and non Asian customers.

Unlike most multicultural Festivals this Festival did not feature heavily traditional folk dancers in original costumes. However for those wishing to feel traditional there were dress-up costumes.

What appeared on stage was utterly contemporary. K-Pop is sweeping Korea and the world. Naturally,  the locals were ‘infected’ so the afternoon consisted of the younger generation participating in a giant K-Pop performance with lip-synching.

Not a smidgeon of politics just the Korean diaspora and other visitors having a thoroughly good time enjoying the delicious food and the lively entertainment.

All pics by Ben Apfelbaum.

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.