By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter

In the past century, museums were committed to the cause of consolidating national identity via preservation and development of Korean cultural assets while struggling through Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945) and the Korean War (1950-53).

But the 21st century has ushered in a new concept: to become the main player in promoting the "national brand" by providing abundant cultural content.

"The past hundred years were a turbulent era that saw the harsh Japanese colonial rule and the Korean War. Despite the difficulties, the museums across Korea have been committed to the preservation of cultural heritage. Now the museums are seeking to increase the national brand," said Choe Kwang-shik, director of the National Museum of Korea, in an interview with The Korea Times.

The 56-year-old director said that the museums have evolved into Korea's treasure houses. This year is considered to be the 100th anniversary of the country's first modern museum, the Imperial Museum of Korea of the Changgyeong Palace, which was opened to the public in 1909 under the orders of King Sunjong, the last king of the Joseon Kingdom.

To commemorate the occasion, Choe, as the head of the country's flagship museum, has announced a variety of plans to help state-run museums play a more integral part in improving the country's brand image, which includes establishing a massive complex for museums in downtown Seoul that he believes will become a major tourist and cultural destination.

He reminisced about Korean museums' 100-year history ahead of the anniversary, which falls on Nov. 1.

King Sunjong convinced his ministers to accept his decision, heralding the founding of the nation's first public museum and giving ordinary citizens access to its valuable collections.

"It was the first time a museum was open to the public. At the same time, it means ordinary people were allowed to gain access to the royal palace, opening an era for civil society to communicate with the royal families," said Choe.

"But people are not aware of this special occasion without knowing that the country's first modern museum was launched 100 years ago. So through various promotions, we are expecting the museums to make a giant leap forward on this occasion."

Although the Imperial Museum of Korea was downgraded to the Museum of the Yi Royal Family under Japanese colonial rule in 1911, it continued to exhibit its collection of 12,000 precious treasures such as the gilt-bronze statue of Contemplative Bodhisattava (National Treasure No. 83), Joseon painter Kim Hong-do's paintings and Goryeo porcelain, which are now in the representative collection of the National Museum of Korea.

Choe, who's been the director of the museum for one and half years, said that during the hard times, historical artifacts were important to reinforce national identity. "The two Koreas also struggled to obtain the national treasures during the war because the historical relics meant the state's legitimacy, as we saw Chiang Kai-shek move Chinese relics from the imperial collection in Beijing's Forbidden City to Taiwan during the Chinese civil war," he said.

He said that the two Koreas vied to hold overseas exhibitions in the 1950 and '60s. North Korea held exhibitions in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, while South Korea staged shows in the United States and Western Europe.

This has all changed in the 21st century, with museums now required to play a different role in upgrading national image.

"Korea is known for its high-tech mobile phone makers and ship builders in other countries. But Korea's long history and tradition remain relatively unknown to the world. If they know our tradition, they would highly appreciate Korea as a cultured nation," the director said.

The national brand can be spread through having cultural content reproduced in a modern light, he said.

For example, the museum held a fashion show using the patterns and designs from its collection in August and received rave reviews from visitors. The director said that films, dramas, animations and modern paintings are among the examples of works inspired by historical relics and their content.

"If we don't have a gold crown, how can the drama 'Great Queen Seondeok' reproduce the story? Much cultural content come from historical relics," he said.

To better enhance the national brand, Choe is pushing ahead with a plan to establish a museum complex on the site of the nearby U.S. army base, envisioning a new national landmark.

"I have the idea of building a museum complex by housing more museums like the Smithsonian Institution, which has 19 museums nearby, and Japan's Ueno Park, which is home to an array of museums,'' the director said.

He drew the plan of clustering a diverse group of sites such as a natural history, children's and folk museums to live up to the exemplary models of the world's top offerings ― necessary to make it a Seoul landmark.

"But it's still on the drawing board without any detailed plan," he said. "We need more cooperation with related government agencies and public support."

When he was inaugurated in March last year, he vowed to make the museum "popularized, globalized and information-oriented."

Looking back on his past term in office, Choe saw the number of visitors rise by 30 percent from last year due to special programs to mark the 100th anniversary. "The audience has gained more access to the museum through exhibitions and other cultural programs. I think my effort to popularize the museum worked a little bit," he said.

Also, as part of globalization, the institution successfully hosted special exhibitions to show Persian and Egyptian civilizations to local audiences, and plans to hold Inca and Silk Road exhibitions, slated for the end of this year and next year, respectively. Particularly, the institution will dispatch a Korean curator to the Korea Gallery of the British Museum this month.

"It's the first time to send our curator to an overseas Korea Gallery. We will expand the curator support programs to other foreign museums. It's very important for the museum's globalization," he said.

But the director admitted that he hasn't fully put the digitization of the museum contents into practice. On average, about 8,000 people visit the museum and the same number browse the Web site every day. But the number of people viewing the Internet domain of the Smithsonian museums is more than 10-fold the visitors going to the actual museums, he said.

"We should attract more visitors to our Web site because they are our potential visitors. Our Web site contents are not good enough. For my remaining term in office, I will try to improve the digital contents for the wider access of the audience," he said.

Also, the museum will try to appeal to expatriates and multicultural families with cultural programs and diverse language services.

The museum is educating a total of 44 volunteers to curate the exhibitions in six languages ― 25 for English, 10 for Japanese, 4 for Chinese, two for French and one for Italian. The volunteers will start to offer language assistance from November.

Currently, there are about 600 national and private museums nationwide. They are now opening the doors wider with more diverse cultural programs, as well as exhibitions under the flagship museum.

In the past, the museums focused on exhibitions, but now they are interacting with the needs of real life. The number of visitors to the exhibitions slightly decreased from the previous year due to fears of influenza A (H1N1) in September. But the number of participants in educational and cultural programs dramatically rose, pushing up the total visitor numbers, the director said.

"It means people's quests for the museums are not just the exhibitions but also the cultural activities. The museums, regarded simply as a place for the past, are changing."

chungay@koreatimes.co.kr