Rosalie Kim has been serving as the curator of Korean Art at the world's largest museum of decorative arts, Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) for the last 13 years. Her relationship with UMBER POSTPAST goes back to when she wore a dress designed by its creative director Jaden Cho at the opening of “Hallyu! The Korean Wave” exhibition, of which she was the lead curator, in 2022. Their paths crossed again when the museum acquired persimmon- and salt-dyed suit made by UMBER POSTPAST in 2024. Kim speaks about the significance of prioritising exchange over uniqueness, and displaying the ‘continuation of time’ by collecting both historical and contemporary objects.

There is a tendency in the museum to say things like, “Korean things are all from Korea” and people don't really understand that they are different regions within Korea as well. So I'm trying to see whether we can build more regional collections. When I was looking at Jaden’s collection, it just happened that the latest thing was the salt flower series. When I saw the pieces, especially the suit, it was very modern. It was, at the time, when leopard print was coming to the fore again and it looked kind of like an animal print pattern. We had been pursuing those objects in our collection, but most of them are from Jeju Island. It was interesting to show that there are other regions working with the same technique. As Jaden was explaining, because of the soil and the climate, it has a different shade of color than those you might find elsewhere, like in Jeju. I felt like these kinds of regionalities were interesting.

From my understanding, the way the Japanese persimmon dye works is different from the way Korean persimmon dye does. It's something to do with the level of tannin, but there is an element that is filtered out in the Japanese one, which is not in the Korean one, and so you get different hues. So despite the fact that they are both using persimmon, they are different in composition; we'll have to do a scientific analysis to be able to define that. It’s also interesting to see beyond East Asia. There might be other ways of using persimmon in the Middle East, or in other countries where you have this type of fruit. Or they have different types of fruit but the same sort of quality in terms of colors maybe, or different in terms of their technique. Was there any sort of sale of those types of fabrics elsewhere in part of the world, that then went on to trigger something else? What was the relationship with other regions within Asia, with South Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania? Those are also the questions that we're looking at.

We are in a museum that was established during a specific time in British Empire history. And aside from the British galleries, the Asian department is the only geographical department. This has its pros and cons. On the one hand, having a separate gallery for a relatively smaller collection like the Korean collection prevents it from disappearing in a global museum and its vast collections. On the other hand, having galleries of Japan, China, Korea, or India would emphasize the otherness of those collections. You’d think, “Oh, that's a different country,” so you automatically set yourself in a different sort of mental state, consciously or unconsciously. I suppose in a world where nowadays nationalism is growing, this isn’t always really a good thing because you want to say that culture is always on the move and it has always been a diplomatic channel to bring two nations together. Now, I think in the Korea Gallery, the narrative initially was “Korea is unique,” “Korea is important.” And it is; I'm not saying that it's not important, that it's not unique. But my problem with that kind of presentation is that it loses contact with the rest of the world. And it almost emphasizes the 19th-century idea of ‘hermit kingdom,’ which is a concept that was written by an American author who never, at the time of penning that, traveled to Korea. So it's a completely Western concept. And by saying “oh, Koreans are this, Koreans are that,” you don't talk about the sort of cultural exchanges that happened during that time; you don't situate Korea on par with others. So I started displaying contemporary materials with historical materials, mass-produced materials with artistic materials, things made by living national treasures with things made in industries, to have people re-think about Korean objects. The brilliance of Korean history or culture doesn’t solely reside in the Goryeo Dynasty or Joseon Dynasty, but actually these traditions continue to this day, and you can see nowadays—especially with craft and design—that they are coming to the fore as well.

Actually we have made a call recently asking a few people in Korea if they had clothes that their grandmother used to wear from the 1960s or the 70s, so that we can expand the range of things we can show. This is also difficult, because from a Western museum perspective, some of the designs might not be amazingly fresh or new. So the museum sometimes doesn't really understand why they should acquire those. But then there are other aspects, such as what the cultural context was at the time and why they are slightly different from Western designs. So we're trying to make more collections of those early designers as well. If anybody in Korea reads this and has amazing things and they would like to donate, we are very open to this. People are constantly trying to think if something is unique to Korea or unique to Japan or unique to China. But this concept of uniqueness is sometimes misleading because it's not always a good one. If you don't see other people doing it, then it means it didn't affect anybody, you know. It didn't inspire anybody else to do this. I think it's nice, when something’s not necessarily unique. Because it means that you are part of the whole discussion around the world and you made a contribution to that with your own culture and your own background. So it's a good thing. That's part of human history, that's part of the whole global exchange of culture. And it’s revealing that nowadays, everybody is just precious about their boundaries, their culture. I think it's nice to be able to say that actually you inspired others, you were inspired by others, but you made it yours as well.