bela (KR, 1996)
Residency period: September-November 2026
bela is a South Korean musician and performance artist based between Berlin and Prague. Their work fuses electronic music with pungmul, a Korean folk tradition rooted in agricultural rituals and social movements, layered with raw vocals shaped by extreme metal. Journaling is central to bela’s performance practice, often recited in darkness to summon an ascetic mindset that lingers beyond the performance. Through guttural cries and voice manipulation, they transform pungmul into a ritual of queer rage and grief.
Their recent album, Noise and Cries, brings together five basement experiments and two ambient pieces reflecting on precarity in South Korea, queer identity, fractured relationships, and survival. Collaborative projects include audiovisual performances with Theresa Baumgartner and Lukas Feigelfeld, and improvised vocals with AKA HEX (Aïsha Devi and Slikback). bela has performed internationally and was nominated for the SHAPE+ Platform 2023–24.
During their residency at La Becque, bela will develop Retracing, a sonic reconstruction of nature, death, and self through sound, photography, and cartography. Working with autobiography, trauma, and internal dialogue, they will compose a new work that culminates in an audio walk. Over several journeys, bela will revisit a past plan to die in the Alps, gathering mementos in the form of field recordings, voices, jokes, photos, journals, and interviews. The project will reflect on the social contexts of suicide in South Korea and beyond, reframing the process as a space of affirmation and reconciliation while engaging with the micropolitics and mentality of precarity.
bela, photo Camille Blake