Jaha Koo's «Haribo Kimchi» Brings a Shared Meal and a Meditation on Exile to FOG 2026 in Milan

South Korean author, director, composer and performer Jaha Koo brings «Haribo Kimchi» to the FOG Performing Arts Festival 2026 at the Triennale di Milano on 28 and 29 October, following a run at the Festival d'Avignon and an earlier encounter with Parisian audiences. The staging recreates a pojangmacha, the small street-food stalls of Korean nights, and Koo prepares a real meal on stage whose aromas spread through the room as the performance unfolds. Two spectators are invited from their seats to join him at the table, shifting the relationship between stage and audience from spectacle to hospitality. Koo recounts his childhood, his family, his departure from Korea and his arrival in Europe, and the sensation of living in several countries without fully belonging to any. The title pairs kimchi — the fermented cabbage each Korean family makes by its own recipe, treated here as memory and inheritance — with Haribo sweets, a globally circulated European pop-culture marker. Rather than framing identity as a choice between two worlds, the piece presents it as an assemblage in which neither culture is abandoned. Korean pop references, including a singing snail and a robot eel, appear without nostalgia, and the scenography turns kitchen utensils into props and everyday gestures into theatrical writing. After the applause, Koo invites the audience to a tasting of a galette and a chilled soup. Photographs are by C. Raynaud De Lage and Bea Borgers.