SPACE June 2025 (No. 691)
View of the Photography Seoul Museum of Art / Image courtesy of Seoul Museum of Art / ©Yoon Junhwan
After a decade of preparation, the Photography Seoul Museum of Art (hereafter Photo SeMA) opened its doors on May 29 at Changdong, Dobong-gu in Seoul. This museum – which is Korea’s first public museum to be dedicated to photography – was built to preserve and manage 140 years of wealth of Korean photographic works. With two basement floors and four aboveground floors that in sum comprise a total area size of 7,048m2 , the building façade was designed by Mladen Jadric (principal, Jadric Architektur) and Yoon Geunju (co-principal, 1990 urban architecture office) to resemble photography pixels. The elegant lines that curve from the ground to the black exterior louver present a strong impression to onlookers. The interior was equipped with various programmes such as an exhibition room of about 1,800m2 , an education room, a darkroom, a photo library, and a photobook café. To celebrate its opening the Photo SeMA has two exhibitions currently on display, titled ‘The Radiance: Beginnings of Korean Art Photography’ and ‘Storage Story’. ‘The Radiance: Beginnings of Korean Art Photography’ features the works of five major photographers in Korea (Jung Haechang, Lee Hyungrok, Lim Suk je, Cho Hyundu, Park Youngsook) while ‘Storage Story’ showcases the works of six contemporary photographers (Dongsin Seo, Oh Jooyoung, Won Seoung Won, Melmel Chung, Jihyun Jung, Joo Yongseong) to document the stages of the museum’s construction. Aside from exhibitions, Photo SeMA is planning to hold educational events, conduct research, collection, preservation of important works and data related to the Korean history of photography, and shape new narratives of the past, present, and future of photographic culture.
