Natural dye and its traditions have been widely practiced and inherited by Koreans. It is connected deeply to Korean textile traditions and daily necessities products and fun recreations in modern society. In this session, we will be hearing from four natural dye practitioners and scholars who research and create arts, crafts, and educational programs with various types of traditional Korean natural dye and textile methods. 

"Introducing the unknown beauty of natural dye traditions, textile arts, and ancestor’s wisdom from my mother country is very special to me as a Korean-American immigrant, especially at the beginning of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.  I hope this session becomes an intersectional path connecting two cultures from my old home and my new home, with honoring and healing.  Also, I hope this session helps people who are not familiar with Korean and East Asian cultures to learn, understand and enjoy, giving new perspective about looking at one of the biggest current issues; hate crimes and microaggressions toward Asians, BIPOC, and immigrant communities in this nation and globally." - Rosa Chang

This event was held on Saturday, May 1, 2021. A recording of the night's session is included below, along with individual interviews with each panelist.

 

Learn More About the Panelists

Dr. Heo, Buk-Gu

Dr. Heo, Buk-Gu has been working as an educator, researcher, and artist focusing on the Korean traditional paper flower making in Korea. He earned both his Master's and Ph.D. degrees in Agriculture from Mokpo National University in Mokpo, South Korea. He is the Chief of Management Bureau of the Naju-si Natural Dyeing Cultural Foundation (the management of Natural Dyeing Cultural Center) and a faculty in the Horticulture Department at Wonkwang University. As one of the representative researchers in Korean traditional natural dye, craft, and Horticulture, he has written and published over 105 publications and more than 325 research papers, including news columns and magazines in South Korea. His paper flower arts have been actively exhibited in Korea and Taiwan.

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Cho, Mi Sook

Cho, Mi Sook earned her Bachelor's degree in Fashion Industry at Ehwa Woman's University. From 1997 to 1998 she’d learned Korean Natural Dyeing from two natural dyeing masters, Lee Na Kyung and Kim Jeong Hwa. She studied Korean Traditional Clothing at Ehwa Graduate School in 2001 and obtained a master’s degree by Analysis of Research Trends of Natural Dyeing in 2004 and completed a doctoral course in 2006. Since 1999 she’s been developing a program and educating diverse students at University preschools, such as Ehwa Woman's University, Korea National College of Agriculture and Fisheries, Wonkwang Digital University, elementary school, middle school, and high school, including students with developmental disabilities, single-parent family, a teacher, a housewife, and so on. The program is about the social, historic, and cultural meaning of color, a message of change nature delivers, the peace that handwork provides, and interaction with other people. Furthermore, natural dying practice allows to interpret procedures and results of creating a natural color as the story of life and to share the comfort that it yields through the story of color, imaging color, naming color programs. Since 2004 she’s been participating in the project of reproducing excavated costumes and books, traditional color reconstruction, and restoring natural dyeing artifacts. She published the book ‘Unique Color Story - Natural dyeing that finds your color in ourselves (??? ???? – ?? ?? ?? ?? ????)’ in 2007. The book is selected as an educational book of the year by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. She also wrote terminology of dyeing joining in compiling a garment dictionary twice.

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SouJou Jang

SouJou Jang is an indigo dyer, farmer, and teacher who works with Korean natural indigo dyeing. SouJou Jang runs an indigo farm with Korean Natural Indigo Dyeing Co-op and develops organic products made of natural indigo dyeing. SouJou Jang is the founder and CEO of Kindigo, the director at the Korea Natural Indigo Cooperation. She earned a Ph.D. degree in Convergence Engineering Science from the Hoseo University: Hoseo Graduate School of Venture where she wrote a thesis on indigo’s medical value and application. Previously she was the headteacher at Bandi Eco-School from 2000-2012 and has organized the Indigo Festival at Craft week Korea from 2018-2020.  She received the Gold, Silver, Bronze, Seoul Mayor's Prize at the International Women's Invention Exposition in 2015.  

Aimee Lee

Aimee Lee is an artist who makes paper, writes, and advocates for Korean papermaking practices (BA, Oberlin College; MFA, Columbia College Chicago). Her Fulbright research led to the first hanji studio in North America, an award-winning book, Hanji Unfurled, and an active studio practice that includes jiseung, joomchi, paper textile, botanical paper, and natural dyeing techniques. She travels the world to teach, exhibit, and serve as a resident artist while also building and enhancing studios for Korean and East Asian papermaking. She teaches artists’ books at the Cleveland Institute of Art and is an Ohio Arts Council Heritage Fellow. Her favorite plant for papermaking is milkweed and she is currently a Fulbright Senior Scholar conducting toolmaking research in Korea.

 

This event series is supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council.