Dialog Now and Then

This embroidery is based on a painting in the museum’s collection, View of Nong’eun Villa from Yukgang Hill, by the eminent true-view landscape painter Jeong Seon (1676–1759). Miran Lim Lee, a textile artist based in the Bay Area, reinterprets the eighteenth-century painting in her embroidery work by adding twenty-first-century elements. Instead of using brushwork, Lee creates the scenery with silk thread and lets the viewers imagine what kinds of conversations would have occurred if the scholars on the hill were alive today. The Korean words and phrases embroidered here are cultural expressions used by the latest generation of internet users who constantly create, alter, and evolve language. By employing the most current vocabulary in the traditional medium of embroidery, the artist connects the past and present.

This work is one of the three components of a Korean embroidery project produced in collaboration with the museum’s Education department. The series invites local artists to research and reinterpret traditional Korean artworks in the collection. The project has been supported by the Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation, Korea.