Jeju Transportation Welfare News | [National Museum of Korea] National Daegu Museum Special Exhibition “Women’s Hanbok Meets the Modern Era”

"An Encounter with the Hanbok in the Cherished Everyday Lives of Our Mothers and Grandmothers"

National Daegu Museum Special Exhibition "Women's Hanbok Meets the Modern Era"

The National Daegu Museum (Director Hong Jin-geun) will hold the special exhibition "Women's Hanbok Meets the Modern Era" from Saturday, December 8 through Sunday, March 10, 2019. This exhibition sheds new light on the hanbok worn by women in everyday life from 1900 to the 1970s, and the stories of Daegu women embedded in that hanbok. From the schoolgirl hanbok uniforms worn during the independence movement a hundred years ago, to velvet skirts of the 1950s, and lace jeogori and Arirang skirt-and-jeogori sets of the 1960s-70s, some 150 items -- hanbok representative of their eras and props and materials showing the fashions of the time -- will be on display.

In particular, the prologue introduces, side by side, Kim Hong-do's "Album of Genre Paintings" (Treasure No. 527) and Shin Yun-bok's "Album of Women's Customs," works ordinarily seen only in textbooks, while the epilogue displays works by Korean painter Kim Hyun Jung, offering visitors a special opportunity to compare and appreciate paintings of women in hanbok across the traditional and the contemporary. It will also be a meaningful encounter to see 1950s-60s-style wedding hanbok made by the late Lee Young-hee, a world-renowned hanbok designer from Daegu, displayed alongside contemporary wedding photographs of Daegu and North Gyeongsang women from that era.

The exhibition is organized into three main parts.

Part 1, "Modern Women Attempt to Transform Hanbok," examines the transformation of women's hanbok across three periods (the 1900s-20s, the 1930s-40s, and the 1950s-70s). It introduces not only hanbok from each period, which clearly show changes in the shape of the jeogori and in fabric materials, but also related props and contemporary fashion magazines. The highlight of Part 1, 'Mother's Workshop,' recreates the room where women of the 1950s-60s hand-sewed and wore their own hanbok, offering visitors a chance to feel the memories and nostalgia of the era.

Part 2, "Women's Hanbok Walks Through Modern Daegu," introduces the little-known stories of modern Daegu women and the hanbok woven into their lives. On a stage set up as the 'Daegu Women's Theater,' five women in hanbok appear and recount stories from important historical moments in Daegu, such as the National Debt Repayment Movement and the March 8 Independence Movement. Photographs captured by photographers who represented modern Daegu -- Gu Wang-sam, An Wol-san, Park Yeong-dal, Bae Sang-ha, Do Ju-ryong, and Jo Sang-min -- are also introduced.

Part 3, "Daegu Women Speak of Hanbok," introduces stories embedded in the hanbok and photographs of women from the Daegu and North Gyeongsang region. It shares small, personal stories woven into the hanbok of the late Mrs. Kwon Bun-soon, Mrs. Lee Soo-eok, and Mrs. Kim Ki-joon. Part 3 in particular is a space built through the participation of citizens of the Daegu and North Gyeongsang region; faded photographs from family wardrobes, collected through a photo contest, will make it a precious place that turns individual memories into shared memories.

Woven together through a variety of "encounters," this exhibition offers a time to look back on the appearance of our mothers and grandmothers and the stories hidden in their everyday lives, through the modern hanbok that has now disappeared from around us and thus feels all the more wistful and dear. It is hoped that for the older generation, it will stir the wistfulness and nostalgia of that era, while for the younger generation, it will be a fresh encounter offering a taste of the charming atmosphere of the 'modern era' currently in vogue.