[Reporter’s Notebook] National Folk Museum Obsessed with Making Sejong a Premium City

The Purpose of Relocation to Sejong Is Regional Cultural Development
Roadmap Lacks Plans to Leverage Central Location
Ambiguous Identity Must Be Established as a New Strength

"I will make Sejong a premium city." This is the bold promise of Jang Sang-hoon, the newly appointed director of the National Folk Museum of Korea. He said that the National Folk Museum, which will relocate before 2031, will be reborn as a key cultural facility in the central-southern region. The process is going smoothly. The complicated site issue was easily resolved. The museum has secured a location within the National Museum Complex in Sejong. This area already houses the National Children's Museum. By 2029, the National Urban Architecture Museum, National Design Museum, National Digital Cultural Heritage Center, and National Archives of Korea will open sequentially.

National Folk Museum

The National Folk Museum, as a latecomer, will complete the relocation announcement, land purchase contract, and architectural design competition within this year. Next year, it will proceed with design services and carry out construction and exhibition work by 2030. The project budget is 198.1 billion KRW, with a total floor area of 24,088㎡ (land area 50,815㎡).

The regional concentration of national museums is a meaningful attempt. Most museums and art galleries are located in the Seoul metropolitan area. Cultural facilities are a core driving force for regional cultural development. If their value is rediscovered or recreated, they can even contribute to the local economy. Sejong City is filled with high expectations. It expressed its welcome immediately after the relocation decision.

Whether the National Folk Museum will properly serve as a key driver of cultural development in Sejong City remains uncertain. Despite holding 1,067,784 modern and contemporary folk cultural artifacts, the museum has not made a significant impact so far. The exhibition themes were either too narrow or obscure for a national museum of its scale. The relevant materials were scarce and lacked uniqueness, barely bridging generations. For example, the exhibition "Yomul, the Cat That Bewitched Us," running until next month, mainly features movies, webtoons, and advertisements easily found online. Notable items include the "Byeonsangbyeok Pil Myojakdo" and "104 Poems of Cats," borrowed from Seoul National University.

Despite its vague and abstract identity, the number of visitors was not small because many visitors to Gyeongbokgung Palace toured the museum as well. The National Folk Museum is located in the northeastern area of Gyeongbokgung Palace. Many people visited it while touring the palace. Without the backdrop of Gyeongbokgung, its competitiveness is questionable. However, Director Jang said, "We cannot abandon the greater cause just because we fear a decline in visitor numbers."

Therefore, the solution proposed is to focus on global living culture materials. In March, the museum received living culture materials donated by Koryo-saram (ethnic Koreans) residing in Kazakhstan, and this month it will receive wooden furniture used by a foreign family who lived in Korea during the Japanese colonial period. In the second half of the year, the museum plans to visit Malaysia to purchase baskets. Director Jang stated, "We plan to secure various collections such as jeans and salt for the exhibition and research of global living culture," adding, "We will establish an action plan for data collection within this year by 2030."

However, concerns in the folklore academic community that interest in folklore may decline due to the relocation to Sejong are bound to deepen. The rationale for relocating to Sejong was to be situated in the center of the country and organically cooperate with other folk institutions located nationwide in the east, west, south, and north. Smooth cooperation with other folk institutions is certainly a new advantage that can fill the museum’s insufficient exhibition content and enable it to function appropriately as a national museum. However, the roadmap presented by Director Jang lacks any implementation plan for cooperation utilizing geographical characteristics. The focus is on realizing a global culture museum.

The main purpose of relocating the National Folk Museum is not to make Sejong a premium city. Regional cultural development should take priority. Rather than collecting and exhibiting global living culture materials, it is necessary to establish a system to cooperate with regional folk institutions and implement concrete strategies such as conducting exhibitions and education as public services. This is the solution to compensate for the loss of the Gyeongbokgung effect.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.