As I was invited to help cover the
Korea Bojagi Forum 2012, hosted by Chunghie Lee, I had my first opportunity to visit South Korea. I think I was fortunate to see some of the best and unusual parts, as the whole intense experience never failed to provide novel situations. From a small village museum for paper flowers, bedecked with banquet and featuring both traditional Korean performers and suavely dressed contemporary Korean singers which enticed both visitors and locals onto the dance floor, to a tripartite jewelry, gallery and design academy operation run with only a small crew by the jeweler and her husband, each encounter was full and beyond expectations.
Six days of the trip were spent in Paju, near Seoul. Paju itself has its own interesting presence, an experimental district called Paju Book City. Founded to encourage print publication and publishing, this area has its own substantial guest house, which basically serves as its hotel, and a wide number of publishing houses alongside some natural marshland. With a few restaurants, it's a quiet retreat from the bustle of Seoul, and was relatively close to the
Heyri Art Village, where the conference was held. Heyri is another interesting instance of Korean public development, where a number of galleries, cafés and a museum or two provides a substantial amount of space for art.
Gallery MOA, which was doing a Forum exhibit on textile sculptures, was one visit, as well as
Lee & Park Gallery. In total, about seven galleries presented work from the Bojagi Forum, and there are even more galleries in Heyri. As a concentrated area of craft, Heyri should be marked down as a possible place to interface with the Korean craft community.
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| Dongdaemun Fabric Market |
South Korea, like several other East Asian countries, has its acknowledged culture centered on its largest city, Seoul. No where else in Korea is considered to be its equal in having the latest styles and the strongest artistic presence, not to mention the locus of luxury goods. This centralized society can also be seen in China. What this means is to get to the heart of Korean craft, one must visit Seoul. Insadong and the Dongdaemun fabric market are two places where one can purchase craft or materials. Insadong is a series of roads lined with stores, scattered with galleries and street market stalls. From kitsch to respectable jewelry or ceramics, Insadong is not a center of high quality handmade craft, but still offers a good place to make some nice finds. As for textiles, the Dongdaemun market is very extensive. If you've visited the leviathan wholesale markets of places of various Asian countries, you should have a good idea of what's in store.
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Silver and jade necklace by
Soonyoung Moon |
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Mond Gallery, owned by Moon
and Jeong |
Cheongdam-dong, one of the major thoroughfares through Seoul, is the city's hub for luxury brands. Most Koreans are, if they're interested in jewelry or clothing, concerning themselves with high cost name-brand items. This trend continues in other East Asian countries. Most luxury items are a symbol of status rather than aesthetics, and known brands carry more clout among the populace. However, beyond the immediate streetside stores of Prada and Tiffany, one can find small design firms and businesses set up by independent artists in the blocks nearby. Among these is
Aetas, the brainchild of Soonyoung Moon and her husband, Hyukjin Jeong. A combination of gallery and design academy, Aetas is perhaps the only educational institution of its kind to teach students not only jewelry design, but also small business practices. While this may seem like an exaggeration, Korean culture, like many East Asian societies, does not promote individual success to the same degree that can be found in the United States. If one is to make jewelry, one is expected to work for a larger firm rather than be an independent studio artist. Soonyoung is one of the rare jewelers living in Korea who is the latter, and her gallery exhibits both her work, as well as student exhibitions. She also sells her work in one of the large department stores bordering Cheongdam-dong. Her small company has grappled with many of the issues of small businesses in any economy, but are particularly inspirational for those of us in the craft field.
We also spent two days in Daegu, a textile production city many hours south of Seoul. In fairly stark contrast to Seoul's hive of apartment buildings, here one will simply see clusters of urban area interspersed with vast sections of farms and rolling green hills. The
Flower Museum of Yongchun village, near Daegu, and the
Museum of Natural Dye Arts in Daegu proper were the two notable visits. The Flower Museum exhibits exquisite handmade paper flowers in a small multi-spoked house. In this case, a thousand words could not substitute for a simple picture.
Of particular value to fiber artists is the Museum of Natural Dye Arts, which hosts a trove of information about traditional Korean clothmaking and dyemaking, with sculptural tableaus set up all over the museum showing the processes. Where possible, English translations are included in the captions. The incredible amount of materials used to make dye, shown in the bottom floor of the museum, is just part of the reason this museum is a hidden gem. The wife of the museum's director is also one of the few experts on traditional Korean dyemaking methods, such as the use of persimmons to make various bronzing browns. Some of her hand-dyed pieces were available for sale in the gift shop, which one must be warned cohabitates with the museum's collection. Don't assume everything you see is for sale; indeed, unless it has a price tag, it's probably not!
Those who have been paying attention at craft shows the last few years will have seen the successive arrival of Korean jewelers on the scene. Upon visiting South Korea, the role of art, aesthetics and craft in Korean life can be seen as almost everpresent. Architectural elements are constantly played with to create sculptural forms, so even in the cities proper one can see the influence of design and style. As both a caretaker of traditional arts and the source of a new generation of craftspeople, South Korea is certainly an artistic treasure.
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