Korean Studies Advancement Center Looks Back on 30 Years of Collecting 690,000 Artifacts

First Public Display of Yi Hwang's Handwritten Album, 'Portrait Album of Lee Jasoo's Father'
On View at the Confucian Culture Museum Until November 1

The Korean Studies Advancement Center announced on September 14 that, to mark its 30th anniversary, it will hold a regular exhibition titled 'Thirty Years of Light, Thirty Treasures' in the Special Exhibition Hall I on the 4th floor of the Confucian Culture Museum, running until November 1.

Regular Exhibition Poster 'Thirty Years of Light, Thirty Treasures' / Korean Studies Advancement Center.

This exhibition highlights thirty representative artifacts, retracing the journey over the past thirty years in which the Center has collected, preserved, researched, and utilized Korean studies materials passed down in the private sector. The Center has gathered these materials through donations to prevent privately kept documents from being damaged or lost. Starting with the Baekdam clan of the Neungseong Gu family collection donated in 2001, the Center has now accumulated approximately 690,000 items.

The exhibition introduces numerous materials with unique stories, including the 'Chronological Map of Chinese Dynasties' discovered under the floorboards of a head house, the 'Joseongdang Diary' reconstructed by connecting various family archives, and the 'Gayeongi', which records the story of an inkstone that was lost to a fire and later recovered. The 'Portrait Album of Lee Jasoo's Father' from Toegye Yi Hwang's collection of handwritten works will also be unveiled for the first time.

Some of these donated materials have been designated as national heritage, or inscribed in the UNESCO Memory of the World register and the Asia-Pacific regional list. Representative examples include 'Korean Confucian Printing Woodblocks', 'Korean Plaques', 'Maninso: Petition of Ten Thousand People', 'Naebanggasa: Songs of Women', and records related to the National Debt Repayment Movement.

Alongside the exhibition, the Center will also release a special series that presents the discovery and donation process of the thirty major Korean studies materials, as well as the stories connected to them. A Center representative stated, "We hope visitors will reflect on how materials preserved by private individuals over many years have gained new value through collection, preservation, and research."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.