We are excited to introduce the newly established “Ssireum” display in the Experience Room on the first floor of the Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C. The wall features a video explanation of the sport, a bull-shaped trophy awarded to Ssireum champions, a “satba” cloth belt tied around the waist and one thigh of each competitor, and much more.

The Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C. (KCCDC), in partnership with the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design and IA&A at Hillyer, is proud to present Écriture with the Body: Contemporary Korean Women’s Art, a multi-venue touring exhibition featuring works by 18 Korean and Korean American women artist who use writing, language, and text-based practices as powerful means of expressing subjectivity and resisting entrenched gender and racial inequalities.   Rooted in traditions historically shaped by patriarchy but often challenged by women—such as calligraphy (서예, seoye), classical poetry (한시, hansi) and literati painting (문인화, muninhwa)—this exhibition reclaims these artistic forms through an embodied feminist lens. Here, writing is not merely a tool of communication but a visceral assertion of presence, memory, and identity. By inscribing bodily expressions into text, the artists create transformative experiences for audiences. Their works question and transcend formal conventions, offering new perspectives and forging empowering narratives that reclaim space within a historically patriarchal artistic lineage.   This collaboratively organized exhibition spans three venues and features four interrelated subthemes. At the KCCDC the focus is on artists who pay homage to the legacy of visionary Korean American artist and filmmaker Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-1982), expanding on themes central to her practice. Works by Kim Oksun, Ahn Okhyun, Yoon Jeongmee, and Jaye Rhee present a collaborative digital performance that re-reads and re-imagines Cha’s posthumous book Dictée.   Through media art, photography, and installation, these artists challenge the structural logics of language and culture, interrogating the hierarchies embedded within them. Drawing from embodied, diasporic, and feminist experiences, they disrupt fixed systems of meaning and propose new visual and textual grammars. Their practices reimagine "écriture" (the French word for writing) as fragmented, hybrid, and open-ended—resisting assimilation while opening space for multiplicity, uncertainty, and radical subjectivity.   Écriture with the Body gathers these diverse artistic practices into a collective exploration of how writing and the body intersect as tools of empowerment. Rather than offering singular resolutions, the exhibition embraces complexity and dissonance, inviting audiences to reflect on presence, identity, and the transformative power of language and the body.   Écriture with the Body: Contemporary Korean Women’s Art, curated by Dr. Jung-Sil Lee and Dr. Koh Dong-Yeon of Trio & Beats, and organized by the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE) with support from Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, will remain on display at the KCCDC Oct. 3 through Nov. 12, 2025.  Écriture with the Body: Contemporary Korean Women’s Art  Artist & Curator Talk: Thursday, October 2  KCCDC Dates: October 3 – November 12, 2025  Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C. (2370 Massachusetts Ave. NW)   Additional Venues Admission to all participating venues is free, but hours vary. Each venue features different exhibition content.    Corcoran School of the Arts and Design (details here) 500 17th St. NW, Washington D. C. 20006 (Gallery 225, second floor) Oct. 3 – Nov. 15, 2025 (Wed. – Sat., 1 – 5 p.m.) (202) 994-1700   IA&A at Hillyer (details here) 9 Hillyer Court, NW, Washington D. C. 20008 Oct. 3 – Nov. 2, 2025 (Tues. – Fri., 12 – 6 p.m. & Sat. – Sun. 12 – 5 p.m.) (202) 338-0680   About the Exhibition Themes   The exhibition is divided into four thematic sections. Challenging Tradition: Contemporary Literati Painting and Calligraphy reinterprets the aesthetics of traditional literati painting, poetry, jeong-ga (정가) song, minhwa (민화) genre painting, and calligraphy through a contemporary feminist lens. Disturbing Language: Art and Women’s Poetry probes the intersection of visual art and women’s poetry as a site of disturbance and transformation, allowing poetry to become a visual and conceptual tool for reclaiming authorship and voice. Writing with the Body: Performance and Documentation transforms the body into both medium and message of resistance—a living text inscribed with memory, emotion, and defiance. Reimagining Écriture: The Legacy of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha collectively reimagines Cha’s legacy by engaging with the structural logic of language and its embedded hierarchies, reconfiguring écriture (writing) as fragmented, hybrid, and open-ended.   In total across three unique venues the exhibition features works by artists Seongnim Ahn, Yeesookyung, Kim Jipyeong, Minsun Oh Mun, Yun Suknam, Jung Jungyeob, Kook Dongwan, Hong Lee Hyunsook, Cho Youngjoo, Hyun Jung Kim, Jean Shin, Kim Oksun, Ahn Okhyun, Yoon Jeongmee, Jae Rhee, Su Kwak, Jean Jinho Kim, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.   About the Curators   Dr. Jung-Sil Lee is an art historian, critic, and curator specializing in modern and contemporary art from a global perspective. Her research interests span global modernism, ritual theory, feminism, and public art, with a particular focus on narratives at the intersection of decolonization and feminism. She has written extensively on modern and contemporary Asian artists who challenge traditional artistic norms by incorporating traumatic histories into their works. As director of Trio & Beats and ArTrio, Dr. Lee has curated numerous exhibitions.   Dr. Dong-Yeon Koh (also known as Koh Dongyeon) is an art historian, curator, and critic specializing in postwar American art and contemporary Korean art. She is an adjunct professor at Ewha Womans University, Korea, and served as Artistic Director of the Gangwon International Triennale 2024. She has also served on the managing committee of the NaMAF (Seoul International ALT Cinema & Media Festival, 2017–2021) and as commissioner of the Goyang Outdoor Sculpture Festival (2017–2018). Dr. Koh has published extensively on contemporary Korean art, with a focus on popular culture, gender theory, and memory studies. She is also co-author of Modern and Contemporary Korean Art and Culture in Context (1950–Now) (Bloomsbury, 2025), and co-director of Trio & Beats.    About the Artists & Images (featured at the KCCDC)   Kim Oksun has for more than two decades focused her lens on the marginal people and landscapes that exist between displacement and settlement. Having personally experienced the process of relocating to Jeju Island, the artist has captured genre photographs that document the lives of outsiders, while also recording non-native plant species that, like these individuals, have taken root in Jeju’s unfamiliar soil. Drawing from her own experiences, Kim delicately explores how marginalized individuals—those with hybrid identities or the self-claimed names she refers to—employ a range of subtle strategies to adapt to society and their surroundings. Kim has received several major photography awards in Korea, including the 2007 Park Geonhi Cultural Foundation Photography Award, the 2010 Seco Photo Award, the 2016 DongGang International Photo Award, and the Ilwoo Photography Award for Photographer of the Year in the publication category in 2017. Kim had exhibitions at MOMA PS1, Huston Museum of Art, CCP in Tuson, TOP Museum in Tokyo, Kaohsiung Museum of Art, Hong Kong Arts Center, Almaty Casteev State Art Museum, and in Korea at MMCA, SeMA, Leeum, and Atelier Hermès. Her works belong to the collection of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul Museum of Art, Jeju Municipal Museum, and Hanmi Museum of Photography, TOP museum, and Almaty Museum of Art.   Interview, 2024, three-channel video, sound, color, 28min. 8 sec. © Courtesy of the artist (above)     Ahn Okhyun observes the inner dimensions of individual and collective consciousness through photography and video, exploring images of shared emotional states. She has held twelve solo exhibitions in Seoul, New York, and Stockholm, including Women Lead Men Toward the Sacred, Love Has No Name, The World Seen from the Summit of Everest, and Homo Sentimentalis. She has also participated in group exhibitions such as the 2018 Gwangju Biennale Imagined Borders. In addition to her artistic practice, she co-organized Chorus Dictee: Chorus, an exhibition and online performance reinterpreting Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s posthumous work Dictee, sponsored by the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture.   Love Poem, 2021, Single Chanel Video with sound, 13 min., still-cut © Courtesy of the artist (above)   Yoon Jeongmee’s photographs lie at the intersection of documentary and fine art photography, evoking the style of August Sander, a pioneer of German typological photography. With a realist approach, Yoon documents childhood through a cultural anthropological and gendered lens, utilizing socially assigned color codes. Among her best-known works is The Pink and Blue Project.   Yoon has held solo exhibitions in Seoul, New York, and Spain, showcasing pieces such as Zoo (Gallery Boda, 1999) and Natural History Museum (Gallery Boda, 2001). Her work has been featured on the covers of prominent publications such as LIFE magazine (2007), The New York Times (2008), The Telegraph (UK, 2008), and National Geographic (2017). Yoon is also a member of the collaborative project Dictee, which reinterprets the work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Throughout her career, she has received numerous awards, including the Next Artist Award (2006), the Grand Prize at the Sovereign Asian Art Prize (Hong Kong, 2012), the Ilwoo Photography Award (Publication category, 2018), and the Donggang Photography Award (2023). Yoon’s works are part of the collections at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others.   Itaewon Medley, 2021, two channel video with sound, 9 min. 13 sec. © Courtesy of the artist (above)   Red Face,  2005, Coated Digital C-Print, image size: 23 x 19 in (58 x 48 cm), paper size: 23.6  x 19.7 in (60 x 50 cm) © Courtesy of the artist (above)   Jaye Rhee has explored the ruptures between sounds and images originating from different historical moments, as well as the various modes of playback and representation that surround them. By employing and juxtaposing diverse media such as photography, video, and performance, she presents a new poetic reality—one that is at once factual and immediate, yet dreamlike and rooted in imagination. Recently, she has particularly focused on facilitating encounters between Eastern and Western women whose voices were historically marginalized or silenced.   Rhee’s work has been exhibited at venues, including High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2018); Norton Museum of Art, Florida (2021); MCA Denver, Colorado (2023); Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York (2011); Queens Museum, New York (2009); Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (2005); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2012); Kobe Biennale (2007); Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul; Seoul Museum of Art (2019, 2018); Center for Art & Architecture Affairs, Guimarães (2014); and La Triennale di Milano (2016). Her works are included in the public collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Asian Art Museum San Francisco, High Museum of Art, Norton Museum of Art, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Seoul Museum of Art, Gyeonggi Museum of Art, Koo House Museum of Art & Design, SongEun Art and Cultural Foundation, and Leeum Museum of Art.   Pulse and Stillness, 2025, single-channel video with sound, 6 min. 40 sec., still-cut © Courtesy of the artist (above)   Murmur and Resonance, 2021, two channel video 11min 7 sec, 2021, © Courtesy of the artist (above) Korean-born artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, from the mid-1970s until her death at age 31 in 1982, created a rich body of conceptual art that explored displacement and loss. Her works included artists' books, mail art, performance, audio, video, film, and installation. Although grounded in French psychoanalytic film theory, her art is also informed by far-ranging cultural and symbolic references, from shamanism to Confucianism and Catholicism. Cha's exploration of exile and dislocation in her art is informed by her own history. Uprooted during the Korean War, her family immigrated to America in 1962, moving first to Hawaii and then to San Francisco. After years in the Bay Area and time in Europe, Cha moved to New York City in 1980.   As an editor and writer at Tanam Press, she produced two well-known works, Dictée (1982) and Apparatus (1980), an important anthology of essays on the cinematic apparatus. From 1980 until her death in 1982, she was an editor and writer at Tanam Press in New York. Her work has been shown at the Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, CA; Artists Space, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Bronx Museum of Art, New York, among other venues. A major retrospective exhibition of her work, entitled The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-1982) was organized by University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in 2001, and traveled to five cities, including Seoul, Korea. Text credit, above: Electronic Arts Intermix: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Biography.        Aveugle Voix, 1975 (Performance: San Francisco, 1975, Documentation 8 black and white photographs. w6.75 x h 9.5 in ©UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA)

The Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C. (KCCDC) under Director Jongtaek Park and the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation under Chairperson Junghee Kim) proudly co-present A Shared Korean–American Legacy: 800 Days of Restoration, a special photo exhibition at the KCCDC September 4 - 26 celebrating the first anniversary of the Old Korean Legation’s inclusion in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Exhibition Overview   On September 9, 2024, the Old Korean Legation was officially added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places—an honor recognizing its historical and cultural significance. Built in the late 19th century, during a pivotal era of Korean diplomacy, the Legation was the first permanent mission Korea established in a Western nation. For over a century, it has stood in the heart of Washington, D.C., serving as a symbolic meeting point of Korean and American history and culture.   The restoration of this historic building began in October 2015 and continued for nearly three years, until it received final completion approval in March 2018. This marked the first on-site collaboration among specialists from Korea and America, covering every stage, from design and construction to conservation and historical recreation. More than a renovation, the project was a cultural endeavor that revived a key chapter in both nations’ shared diplomatic history, creating a bridge between the past, present, and future.   Throughout the restoration process, photographer Oh Hyangsuk immersed herself in the worksite, producing over 120,000 images that document the restoration in meticulous detail. The exhibition features more than 70 carefully selected photographs, capturing the moment each beam and brick was placed, as well as the dedication and craftsmanship of the people involved.   Praised by U.S. preservation experts for its exceptional quality, the restoration played a central role in the Legation’s addition to the National Register—an acknowledgment of its historical significance and the excellence of its conservation. Through photographs, videos, and personal stories, the exhibition invites visitors to reflect on the meaning of restoration and the enduring power of cultural heritage. For more information about the Legation, visit their official website at https://oldkoreanlegation.org. About the Artist: Oh Hyangsuk   Oh Hyangsuk is a visual artist and street documentary photographer whose work captures the realities of contemporary society and their cultural foundations. Working across cities around the world, she has presented her distinctive perspective through solo exhibitions in Germany, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia.   One of her most notable works, the Old Korean Legation Restoration Series, documents in meticulous detail the dismantling and restoration of the Legation building in Logan Circle, Washington, D.C., over a period of nearly three years from October 2015 to March 2018. This body of work faithfully records the technical processes of architectural restoration while offering an in-depth portrayal of the challenges faced—and overcome—by the construction workers and artisans on site.   Oh’s photography goes beyond simple documentation, focusing on visually narrating the intertwined stories of people, spaces, and the passage of time within them. For more, visit www.ohyangsuk.com.   About the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation   Established in July 2012 under the Korea Heritage Service, the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation is dedicated to the research, repatriation, and promotion of Korean cultural heritage located abroad. The Foundation aims to reintroduce the significance of Korean heritage dispersed worldwide, transforming it into a shared cultural asset for both the Korean people and the international community.   The Foundation works closely with local experts, institutions, and organizations, fostering robust international cooperation. It operates overseas offices in Washington, D.C., Tokyo, and Paris, carrying out research, excavation, exhibitions, and academic programs. In Washington D.C., its U.S. Office also manages and operates the Old Korean Legation Museum, a landmark in the diplomatic history of Korea and the United States. For more, visit www.overseaschf.or.kr.   Special Programs While the photo exhibition is on view at the KCCDC and open to visitors without an appointment during regular hours, the Old Korean Legation will also host two Evening Open Houses: ●Thursday, September 11, 6-7 p.m. (Guided tour in Korean) ●Thursday, September 18, 6-7 p.m.  (Guided tour in English) These evening tours will provide a rare opportunity to experience the fully restored Legation in person, complementing the photographic record on display. Guests will also hear behind-the-scenes stories from the restoration project. Please note that registration for these evening tours at the Legation must be completed in-person in advance at the KCCDC during its regular visitor hours. Due to limited space at the Legation, 20 lucky registrants will be selected at random to participate in each tour event.   

The Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C. is proud to present Patchwork of Elsewhere, a new exhibition of works by Gina Bae, Timothy Hyunsoo Lee, Sookkyung Park, and Yu-Ching Wang that deconstructs and attempts to redefine the familiar notions of home and belonging. In a world characterized by fluidity and change where constants seem persistently elusive, the idea of home often drifts somewhere between memory and reality. Home can be both a structure we inhabit and a feeling we chase—something defined not only by walls and roofs but by a disparate assemblage of language, culture, past lives, and imagined futures. Patchwork of Elsewhere traces this intangible architecture of what makes a mere place truly a home—or not. For many, fond memories of home can also be a source of discomfort when coupled with displacement, longing, or mere provisional belonging. Family, like home, can also be defined in either physical or psychological terms, and the absence of either can be keenly felt. This exhibition investigates these issues within the ever-shifting context of human migration, adaptation, and cultural hybridity in an attempt to redefine a sense of belonging. Artists Gina Bae, Timothy Hyunsoo Lee, Sookkyung Park, and Yu-Ching Wang represent a constellation of creative styles that powerfully evoke the condition of being elsewhere—apart from home and belonging. Each artist, shaped by their cultural background and personal narrative, shares a portrait of life lived in between homes, cultures, and feelings of belonging. Such experiences are both deeply challenging and yet generative of new possibilities. Exhibition Dates On View: July 3 – August 22, 2025 Opening Reception: Thursday, July 3, at 6:00 p.m.  ArtWalk Dupont: Friday, August 1, 6:00–8:00 p.m. (No RSVP required) About the Artists & Exhibition Gina Bae’s paintings weave together traditional Korean folk motifs with speculative, figurative landscapes, creating visual spaces where the stories of two generations—hers and that of her first-generation immigrant parents—overlap as both familiar and unfamiliar snapshots. She experiments with fusing the traditional Korean minhwa art style and her experience growing up as a second-generation Korean American, affording herself a fluid definition of cultural heritage. Timothy Hyunsoo Lee deconstructs bodily and emotional terrain, visualizing the dissonant paths of immigration and queer embodiment. His work explores the rituals, anxieties, and material memories of navigating between cultures while seeking a home within a politicized and ever-shifting body. Sookkyung Park crafts delicate paper sculptures inspired by the overlapping eaves of traditional Korean hanok architecture but which carry multiple layers of meaning. Her work reinterprets both the structural designs and the tactile memory inherent in hanji, Korean traditional paper, as a means of revisiting personal histories of home, memory, and migration. Through meditative acts of folding and layering, she transforms paper into vessels of remembrance, connecting past and present across geographies. Yu-Ching Wang conducts documentary research into the urban presence of migrant communities, presenting poetic yet grounded reflections on how people claim spaces and visibility in their own unique ways in once unfamiliar cities. Patchwork of Elsewhere gathers together these disparate artistic practices with intentionality to form a single collective from distinct fragments of human experience. Rather than striving for a resolution to these challenges, the exhibition embraces the dissonance of being “elsewhere” and reframes incompleteness as a viable alternative to a singular, stable notion of home. In seeking out new ways to belong, even temporarily, Bae, Lee, Park, and Wang collectively create an ephemeral landscape where viewers might even encounter echoes of their own untold stories and unresolved feelings among the fragments of others. All those who have ever felt at home, adrift, or anywhere in between are invited to step into this artistic space that celebrates fluidity over permanence, connection over ownership, and placemaking over rootedness. The opening reception will take place on Thursday, July 3, at 6:00 p.m., featuring an Artist Talk with the participating artists. To attend the opening event, please RSVP via the link below. RSVP Link for the Opening Reception  Selected Artwork Details 배지나 Gina Bae I Am a Fairy and Everything Is Run by Woodcutter Fantasies 2024 Oil on canvas, 48” x 36” 이현수 Timothy Hyunsoo Lee TrueView (Overexposed) 2023 Cyanotype on fabric, 48" x 60" each 박숙경 Sookkyung Park The Sun 2023 Folded Paper, Acrylic & Spray Paint, 31” x 31” x 8” (H) 왕유칭 Yu-Ching Wang Pigeonese  2022 Video and performative action, single-channel, color, with sound, video duration: 15 min. 35 sec.

Join us for The New Beginnings: Golden Jubilee of the Han-Mee Artists Association of Greater Washington, an exhibition of diverse works of art celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Han-Mee Artists Association of Greater Washington (HMAAGW) organization in 1975, on view May 15 through June 20, 2025.   Co-hosted by HMAAGW and the KCCDC, this commemorative exhibition honors five decades of artistic practice, cultural heritage, and the spirit of community among Korean-American artists from throughout the Washington, D.C. region.   The New Beginnings offers more than a mere retrospective. Featuring works by 48 artists spanning several generations, from founding members to HMAAGW’s emerging young artists, the exhibition reflects on real experiences of migration history, personal memory, individual transformation, and future renewal. Together, these artists navigate the duality of identity in a shifting world and advance HMAAGW’s commitment to cultural dialogue and artistic progress.   Founded in 1975 by a group of first-generation Korean immigrant artists, HMAAGW has served as a primal platform for creative discourse and cross-cultural exchange between Korea and the United States. Through a wide range of media—including painting, sculpture, photography, installation, and digital art—HMAAGW artist have explored the evolution of Korean American identity across generations and the unvarnished experiences of the Korean diaspora, fueling the regional art scene with unique and dynamic perspectives.   This exhibition marks both a milestone and a new chapter for HMAAGW. Serving as a moment of reflection and renewal, The New Beginnings aims to solidify the organization’s historical legacy while also presenting a future vision rooted in connection, creativity, and continued exchange between cultures and generations.   The public is invited to join in celebrating this remarkable milestone in Korean American art history. The New Beginnings offers a rare opportunity to experience the diversity of Korean-American artistic voices that both reflect on the past and imagine the future, while bearing witness to the enduring strength of community, creativity, and cultural exchange.   The New Beginnings will remain on view at the KCCDC during regular visitor hours from Thursday, May 15 through Friday, June 20, 2025. For extended evening hours, visit during ArtWalk Dupont’s First Friday community event on Friday, June 6 (6:00 – 8:00 p.m.). Additional exhibition details and related events will be made available on the KCCDC website as they are announced.   About the Han-Mee Artists Association of Greater Washington   The Han-Mee Artists Association of Greater Washington (HMAAGW) is comprised of Korean American artists who have immigrated to the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area throughout the past half century. In 1975, 15 artists living in the region founded HMAAGW as an organization to benefit artists with Korean heritage and to exhibit their unique works, fostering mutual encouragement as they pursued their passion for art together.   HMAAGW members have exhibited their work through individual and group exhibitions in various museums and galleries across the Washington, D.C. area as well as in international locations for 50 years. Such venues include the Korean Cultural Center Washington, D.C., Baltimore Art Center, Historical Society of Washington D.C., Maryland Hall, and Harmony Hall Regional Center. Works of some members are held in permanent collections at various museums.   Members are inspired to showcase their limitless visions, commitment, and individual creativity in order to share the spirit and culture of Korean Americans living in the United States Capital region. HMAAGW strives to pass on Korean cultural heritage to future generations, to enrich the community with cultural diversity, and to increase awareness of Korean American culture within the metropolitan region. For more information, visit www.hmaagw.org. Selected Artwork Details Komelia H. Okim Promenade in the Forest 2023-2024 Wall relief. Digital printing on Fabric, Silver figures, plexiglass cover 38 x 22 X 5.3 in. Jinchul Kim Sequoia 2019 Oil on canvas 24 x 30 in. Tae D Kim-James  Bellona Excavated: A Fictional Archaeology of Power and Identity 2025 Three-Dimensional Composition; Biobased Plastic, Personal Object 31 x 20 x 13 in. Jinsoon Oh  Gaia – Psyche 2024 Cone 6 stoneware 17 x 8 x 6 in. Yoonsun Lim Eve's Chat 2024 Clay & Glaze, five units 18 x 26 x 25 in. Sunhee Kim Jung Unseen on Eyes 9 2025 Oil on canvas   48 x 24 in.