Recipient of the 2026 Arts Council Korea Literature Fellowship
May each of my steps today be filled with goodness. May peace, freedom, and love reign for all. —From Walking In Low and Slow Steps (Bookconnector, 2026)
Seventh Star produces documentaries and writes reportages and essays.
1. Life
Seventh Star started out as a television writer, working mostly on documentaries. She turned to reportage following the sinking of the Sewol ferry on April 16, 2014, documenting the candlelight protests in the heart of Seoul. She won the 7th Cho Yeong-gwan Literary Grant in 2017 for this reportage published as "Ten Days and One More at the Square" and another work. In 2018 she won the documentary category of the 26th Jeon Tae-il Literary Award for "The Yoosung Enterprise Files," for which she photographed and reported on labor and ecological issues from the field. From 2017 onwards, she has spent 10 years on the road walking over 3,000 kilometers for peace and the environment, occasionally broken up by cycling and writing pilgrimages. She writes essays on the thoughts and emotions that come to her in moments of respite. Since 2022, she teaches media content production at a university in Daejeon.
2. Writing
Writer, photographer, and walker, Seventh Star recorded the protests of the people who flooded the square after the Sewol ferry disaster. She then took herself from the open space of the square to the never-ending road. Her Seventh Star’s Pilgrimage for Denuclearization follows five years' worth of lonely protests by the residents of Naa-ri, Yangnam-myeon, Gyeongju, where Wolsong Nuclear Power Plant is located, whose demands that the government aid their relocation have gone ignored. Seventh Star has made reporting the plight of the marginalized her mission, beginning with "The Yoosung Enterprise Files." She has written reportages on the Yoosung Enterprise and FineTek smokestack protests; the 13-year dismissal battle of Cort Guitars/Cor-Tek and the struggle of the Korea Optical Hightech union; the 37-year campaign for the restitution of laborer Kim Jin-suk; opposition to Jeju's proposed second airport; and activism to save the Sura tidal flats from the proposed new airport at Saemangeum.
Seventh Star has downsized for a minimalist life, trading home comforts for a cross-country pilgrimage on foot and by bike, praying for peace and the environment. She has chosen to volunteer her labor as part of preparing for a dignified death. Starting in Wonju, she tended to gardens in Jeongeup, Gokseong, Haenam, Namwon, and Daejeon, communing with nature, ruminating on life, and comforting the pains and sorrow of the poor and ill, writing and illustrating the essays collected in My Gardening Diaries With Wren.
In between each garden she stayed, Seventh Star went on a walking pilgrimage. She prayed for safeguarding life walking along National Route 7 traversing Busan, Gyeongju, and Uljin, where multiple nuclear power plants are located on Korea's east coast; and breathed the air of peace on a pilgrimage of verdant Namdo from Jindo to Haenam, Hadong, Gurye, Namwon, Jeongeup, and Gadeokdo. Walking In Low and Slow Steps, she returned again and again to the question of the meaning of life. Over the course of her staggering journey taken on in search of answers of her own, the meaning of true love, peace, and solidarity blossomed like faith the size of a mustard seed with each step. The prayers of Seventh Star will continue to shine under the banner of life, peace, freedom, and love, walking under blue skies along a path where the mountains and sea meet, until the suffering of all vulnerable beings is eradicated from this earth.
Reference
Reportage/Society, Politics
Seventh Star’s Pilgrimage for Denuclearization 일곱째별의 탈핵 순례 (Geodneunsaram 걷는사람, 2023)
Photography
Seventh Star’s Pilgrimage for Denuclearization Photo Book 일곱째별의 탈핵 순례 사진집 (Byeoldamri 별담리, 2024)
Essays
My Gardening Diaries With Wren 굴뚝새와 떠나는 정원 일기 (Bookconnector 책과이음, 2024)
Walking Pilgrimages/ Society, Politics
Walking In Low and Slow Steps 낮고 느린 걸음으로 (Bookconnector 책과이음, 2026)
Profile information provided by the Arts Council Korea (ARKO)
LTI Korea 
DLKL 
SIWF 
