Gwangju is perhaps the Korean city most associated with the arts, and the city has its own expat magazine dedicated to creative people.

Set to celebrate its first anniversary in March, Art Elemento is on its fifth edition, and is gaining popularity.

“It’s still a baby magazine but the acceptance of people has been really good,” says its founder Joe Wabe, who has lived in Korea for nine years.

The magazine is a bimonthly showcase of expat creativity ― from artists, to musicians and writers.

Issue 5, which came out this week, covered DJs, exhibitions and a feature on high dynamic range photography. Previous issues have touched on creative writing, bands and comic artists.

“The main objective is to show creativity,” Wabe says.

“Gwangju is supposedly a place of art, and there are a lot of artists in Gwangju, so I wanted to show people a little bit of the other side of the foreigners. It was an overnight thought. I had the idea, and the next day I just started putting it together.”

The magazine is still only distributed in Gwangju, and was originally going to feature people in the area, but its profile quickly spread so that it now regularly features the creative talents of people across the country.

“It started with just Gwangju but since the second issue I’ve been getting emails from people all over Korea and so each issue I have one or two artists from around Korea,” Wabe explains. “I even got one Korean-Canadian in Canada who wanted to contribute, so she was part of it.”

He credits a steady buildup in the number of expats and social networking sites for the development of Gwangju’s expat scene to its current vibrant state.

“There’s groups for just about anything.” he says.

“Nine years ago you pretty much hardly ever see a foreigner, but now they’re everywhere, everyone pretty much knows each other. I like it a lot, it’s pretty tight.

“That’s the biggest difference ― there are more groups, there are more things to do, more stores owned by foreigners, more bars, more coffee shops, more bookstores for foreigners.”

Wabe says he hasn’t got much support from local government-supported expat organizations such as the Gwangju International Center. He says the foreign community has largely developed separately from them, but he’s happy to coexist, saying that expats should stick together.

There is also an expat magazine supported by the Gwangju Culture Centers, but he doesn’t feel a sense of rivalry with them because their coverage is different.

“They pretty much do what most expat magazines will do ― reviews of restaurants and talk about politics and stuff like that,” he says.

“I didn’t want to get involved in that. I wanted to do something a bit more creative, something that would give people something to think about, inspiration.”

Going forward, Wabe has picked up some adverts and sponsorship from a local international school. This still isn’t enough to cover costs, and Wabe hopes for more financial support in future, which would give him more freedom with the magazine.

“The main purpose of the magazine was never to make a buck, but it would be nice to produce it without having to pay for it,” he explains.

The next issue will complete a full year’s worth of magazines, and Wabe plans a party involving the people he has featured and those who have written for Art Elemento to celebrate.

Elsewhere he is talking to someone about the possibility of distributing some copies in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province.

Issue 5 of Art Elemento is available at regular expat haunts around Gwangju and can be seen online at http://issuu.com/artelemento.

By Paul Kerry (paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)