SORRYMOM
cockroach workshop
Gwangju
Oct. 24, 2026
(Jisu Sheen recently moved from New Haven to Gwangju, South Korea, where she’s covering local arts and culture for the New Haven Independent and Midbrow.)
Wrestling in the sand, eating snacks out of the trunk of a car, riding a motorcycle against a mountain sunset — welcome to a day in the life of Gwangju skate crew cockroach.
I met them Saturday night at their workshop off Gwangju's historic print-shop-filled "Print Street," where they were premiering a short skate film they'd made called "SORRYMOM."
The space was a physical manifestation of the crew's interests, with stereo speakers, coffee bags, piles of incense, and a complete miniature lego model of the Krusty Krab.
Across the street was a co-occurring pop-up art exhibition with a curtain to a hidden painting and overlapping rugs on unfinished floors, part of the neighborhood's Seonam Arts Festival for young artists. A light drizzle of rain laid a glittering veil between the two spaces. Visitors jogged back and forth.
Back at the cockroach workshop, the crew was playing some of their older videos before the main event. Their music choices were thoughtful and specific, ranging from jazzy oldies to Biggie. They used a fisheye lens and multiple angles to tell their story. Everyone takes turns filming, cockroach member 왐 (WAM) explained.
The premiere had welcome drinks and a "lucky draw" raffle for roach merch. I received a slip of paper with lucky number 13. It didn't win me anything, but it did have a cute bug printed on it.
As the screen played some of cockroach's best hits from years past, I chatted with 김주완 (Kim Joowan), the group's video editor and producer.
He told me the five members of cockroach met while skating around Gwangju's city center. They bonded over skating, smoking, drinking, and an affinity for Harley Davidsons — "things moms don't like," Kim summed up in Korean in his intro to the new skate film.
Their workshop is a private studio, which is a concept they kick around loosely. They gather there after work and on weekends, cultivating a space Kim says is "open, free for all."
The cockroach friends flip and skid through their film scenes without taking anything too seriously. At one point, one skater talks on the phone while his hair is on fire, before another slaps out the flame.
The crew is called cockroach as an homage to the wheels they love—the Korean term for "cockroach" (바퀴벌레) starts with the word for "wheel" (바퀴). They make use of their name's connotations, printing hoodies with cockroach antennae in the shape of hearts and shirts with the phrase "MEN WHO REFUSE TO DIE LIKE COCKROACHES..." above insectified pictures of Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping.
They had been skateboarding friends for six years when, according to WAM, they started thinking, "it'd be nice if we had a space." They started the studio back in the winter and got to work turning it into a home base for their passions.
SORRYMOM is crackly and warm in its aversion to presentability, with monochrome segments and picture-in-picture video collage adding to the scrapbook-like feel. Crew members land tricks and miss others completely. There's not too much explanation, and there doesn't need to be. Vocal harmonies overlap in the soundtrack as the cockroach crew savors life in out-of-context snapshots.
Elsewhere in Gwangju, I've seen city-funded programs try their best to equip young citizens with social support and creative outlets. The hardest part, it seems, is getting people to come back throughout the sessions. Numbers dwindle; it's a natural phenomenon. There's rain in the forecast, or people get busy, and it gets less appealing to leave the house.
Looking out at the packed crowd at cockroach workshop, some even watching from behind the glass walls, smoking outside on the rainy street, I was impressed by the community this crew had built in their pocket of the world. Within the walls of their studio, throughlines between hobbies, anti-authoritarian humor, and friendship were as natural as the gravity they play with on Gwangju's streets.
I asked Kim about his favorite trick. He told me it's the treflip, a maneuver where the board spins 360 degrees and flips at the same time. To him, skateboarding is "not just sports, but something of the culture."
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