Exhibitions

The Feast of Life, Sharing Culture

Collecting, conserving, and exhibiting are primary roles of a museum. The responsibility of collecting artifacts is achieved by a museum in various ways, through purchase, donation, and gift. Especially, donations to a museum play an important role in building a collection, since it is not only an way of collecting, but also a representation of a sharing culture from a socio-cultural point of view.

Based on three themes, <The Feast of Life, Amazing Records of Gifts to the Collection> is an exhibition of a selection from the collections donated to Sookmyung Women’s University Museum since its opening in 1971.

Remembering the Traditions of the Imperial Family:

Various materials and artifacts related to the imperial family were donated to the museum at Sookmyung Women’s University, which was founded upon the wishes of the Imperial Noble Consort Sunheon. On exhibit are materials about the imperial palace dating from the Joseon period to around the Daehan Empire, as well as artifacts from the imperial family.

Presenting Living Culture:

The art pieces and household items that were donated to the museum represent family traditions and wisdom of our ancestors. For example, the paintings, ceramics, accessories, metal and wooden ware on display reflect various lifestyles.

Continuing with Conservation and Restoration:

A museum preserves tradition and maintains it for a long period of time through conservation treatment and restoration practices. For this exhibition, the museum presents Heungwan-gun’s costumes, which underwent scientific conservation treatment, as well as reconstructions of important costumes from the collection, and excavated costumes.

Cultural heritage is preserved and shared through donations, while its value is promoted through exhibitions. The exhibition, <The Feast of Life, Amazing Records of Gifts to the Collection>, is held in honour of the donors, who were willingly to donate a treasured piece of their lives to the museum, in order to share this cultural value with a greater audience.

Daily Life in Modern Culture

Since Korea opened its ports to the world and its culture, political and social changes emerged: there was a shift in Korean culture from being traditional to modern in terms of values, clothing, and housing. This exhibition examines modern lifestyles through clothing storage furniture, which was one of the most important type of furniture placed in the main room(anbang), as well as the clothing it held.

Furniture design was greatly influenced by the modernization of living space: houses during the Joseon dynasty had separate living spaces for male and female, unlike modern living spaces, such as urban style modern hanok or Japanese style housing. For example, a uigori-jang, which is a type of wardrobe that was placed in the male living quarter to hold male clothing, was transformed into a storage unit that could hold blankets and Western-style clothing in the main room during the modern period.

Jang-nong(compound cabinet) is a typical type of modern furniture, which combined two or more styles of furniture from the Joseon period. For example, the bottom would be a bandaji(chest with a hinged front flap), and the top would be used as a wardrobe decorated with jangseok(metal mounts), mother-of-pearl, and mirrors. As a result, people began to store their bedding in a jang(wardrobe) instead of placing them on top of a bandaji or a nong(chest). Furthermore, there were drawers added to these wardrobes, whereas mirrors or glass were used to decorate the doors. The furniture on exhibit represents a modern lifestyle and ranges from a chest inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which was used by the upper-class to flaunt their wealth in the 1920s, to a wardrobe with glass doors that was one of the array of articles necessary for marriage in the 1960s.

The changes in Korean clothing culture during the modern era were influenced by Western-style clothing and modernized traditional costumes. Western style became more dominant in men’s wear compared to women’s wear, which accompanied both Western-style and a modern version of traditional Korean clothing.

Since the time of enlightenment, the design and fabric of hanbok changed due to the development of weaving technology and textiles imported from Japan, U.K., and China: the length of jeogori(traditional jacket) and the shape of barae(the width of a sleeve) changed with time; new materials, such as yangdan(洋緞, foreign satin) from Japan and Hong Kong, velvet, lace, and nylon were used; goreum(ribbon) was replaced with a brooch when fastening a jeogori. These changes are evident in the hanbok collection that is on display in this exhibition.

2020 University Museum Promotion & Support Project
Dates: 2021. 5. 12. ~ 11. 30.
Venue: Sookmyung Women＇s University Museum

2020 Traveling Korean Arts
Dates: 2021. 3. 13. ~ 5. 13.
Venue: The Library of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan - Elbasy
Sponsored by Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism
Hosted by the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange
Organized by the Korean Cultural Center Kazakhstan, Sookmyung Women’s University Museum and The Library of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan - Elbasy

2020 University Museum Promotion & Support Project

Dates: 2020. 10. 13. ~ 11. 13.
Veneu: Sookmyung Women＇s University Museum and Sookmyung Women＇s University MoonShin Museum

Selected as part of the 2020 University Museum Promotion & Support Project, SUM held the exhibition in cooperation with MSM. This exhibition addressed the significance of coexistence, which is still relevant in the past and present, through traditional craftwork and contemporary art.
held at SUM surveyed the universal value and evidence of coexistence through collections that present not only the lifestyle of people from the past, but also the wishes they prayed for. Through MSM exhibited the works of ten artists from Korea and abroad, including refugee artists. It was an opportunity to see foreigners from different standpoints such as culture, art, and human values, setting aside political or ethical agendas. There was a museum talk docent tour program, as well as an on-line exhibition and museum talk that was available on the museum’s website and Youtube channel.

Sookmyung, Museum Reopening
Dates: 2019. 7. 15. ~ 2020. 6. 30.
Venue: Sookmyung Women＇s University Museum

Celebrating the reopening of the SUM, is a special exhibition that introduces the exhibitions held in Pretoria of South Africa, Beijing China, and Washington D.C. during the one-year remodeling period of Renaissance Plaza comprehensively. The SUM was selected by the Korea Foundation for International Cultural Exchange in 2017 exhibition contest, and held three overseas exchange exhibitions. The exhibition presents an opportunity to examine the flow of Korean culture that continues from the past to the present and to explore the contemporariness and excellence of Korean cultural art through the lines and colors of Korean crafts.