Circular Residency | 2025 | Bucheon Residency | Project

2025 UNESCO Cities of Literature Circular Residency

The UNESCO Cities of Literature Circular Residency aims to strengthen connections among partner cities while enhancing the visibility of the UNESCO Cities of Literature network.
The program operates through a circular exchange system: each participating city sends one writer to another destination while simultaneously hosting a writer from a different city. This structure creates a continuous cycle of artistic exchange, collaboration, and cross-cultural dialogue. In 2025, Bucheon sent graphic novelist Lee Dong-eun to Québec City and welcomed writer Elżbieta Łapczyńska from Kraków.

Lee Dong-eun (Bucheon->Québec)

Lee Dong-eun is a graphic novelist, film director, and screenwriter. He made his directorial debut in 2016 with the feature film Season of Change, produced by Myung Film Lab. Since 2013, he has collaborated with writer Jung Yong-il on a series of graphic novels, engaging readers through their distinctive visual storytelling.

During the residency, Lee participated in a variety of cultural programs and connected with local artists. He also developed a new graphic novel project that tells its story entirely through images, without dialogue. By focusing on visual storytelling and cinematic composition, the work seeks to transcend language barriers and reach a broader international audience.

Elżbieta Łapczyńska (Kraków->Bucheon).

<Elżbieta Łapczyńska>

Elżbieta Łapczyńska is a Polish author of novels, short stories, and plays. Her debut novel received the Conrad Award for Best Literary Debut of the Year and earned widespread critical acclaim, along with nominations for several prestigious literary awards. Her second novel was also shortlisted for major literary prizes.
Alongside her writing, Łapczyńska leads creative writing workshops and reading programs for teenagers under the patronage of Kraków UNESCO City of Literature. She also collaborates on theatre productions and radio dramas and is an active member of the Sfinga literary collective, which promotes contemporary poetry through a range of literary initiatives.

During her residency in Bucheon, she worked on her third novel while participating in cultural exchange programs. She also led a workshop for the Bucheon Writers Community, where she introduced her work and shared insights into Kraków's literary scene and her creative practice.

About the Bucheon Residency

Elżbieta Łapczyńska

“ I came to Bucheon to begin my third prose book, but instead I discovered that writing is different from describing. Writing allows you to drill into experience and emerge somewhere else entirely.
Avoidance led me to write thirty poems instead of describing the experience sentence by sentence.
I wrote down about thirty micro-experiences―glimpses into phenomena―beginning with the smell of meat, the sounds of the sewage system, or the lack of ‘my’ food. The freedom of form allowed me to write in the way the place demanded.

I became attached to my poems and wanted to share them, though I was initially hesitant. After three weeks, I overcame my hesitation and committed to publishing them in some form. I keep the poems as a separate work while continuing to write the ‘original text’ in long, logical sentences, which remain useful and meaningful.”