The Jang: a Korean-inspired Market
The Jang is a Korean-inspired open-air market bringing food, art, makers, and community together in Baltimore’s Station North Arts District. Inspired by the spirit of Korea’s traditional markets, the event approaches the market not only as a place of commerce, but as a gathering place: a space where culture is encountered through food, conversation, making, and exchange.
Taking place at the Ynot Lot at 101 W. North Avenue, The Jang brings Korean and Korean-inspired food vendors, local artists and makers, and public programming into one accessible outdoor space. The Ynot Lot occupies the former site of a building that for roughly two decades served as the home of the Korean-American Grocers & Licensed Beverage Association (KAGRO) of Maryland, Inc. By gathering at a site once connected to Korean-American retailers and community networks across Maryland, The Jang links the neighborhood’s history with a new form of cultural gathering in the present. The one-day event brings vendors, artists, neighbors, students, families, and community members together around the kinds of exchanges that give a place its meaning.
In Korean, jang (장) can mean a market or marketplace–a place where people gather and exchange. The name draws from the social character of traditional Korean markets, including recurring open-air markets, while translating that spirit into a contemporary Baltimore context. The Jang is not intended to replicate a traditional market; it is a Baltimore-based gathering shaped by Korean culture, community-building, and the histories of the neighborhood in which it takes place.
The event is free and open to everyone. Guests are encouraged to RSVP via Eventbrite.
About the Curator
Melissa Minseo Oh explores diaspora, memory, belonging, and the ways immigrant communities create and transform cultural spaces. She is particularly interested in how everyday experiences can hold and communicate histories that are often overlooked. She is currently working as a curatorial assistant for “Preserving Baltimore’s Koreatown,” a project examining the history and cultural memory of Baltimore’s Korean immigrant community.
