My contribution to the KAFS Magazine 218th edition. (Korean American Friendship Society)

• 사단법인 한미우호협회지(218호) 기고
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What I learned from the WEST program.
“The Beauty Without Prejudice”

Jiyoung Lee

In 2012, I had an opportunity to live in America for the first time. Thanks to the WEST program, I was able to think about the meaning of living in the United States. Of course, it is almost impossible to understand the whole society considering the time I spent there, but I’d like to write about my feelings and experiences in the field of art which I majored in.

The WEST (Work, English Study, Travel) program is an innovative exchange program through which university students and recent university graduates from the Republic of Korea have gone to the United States to study English, participate in internships, and travel since 2008. Participants can not only receive a VISA simply due to close cooperation between the U.S and Korea, but can also be provided with lots of help and support from the WEST program manager and consulate general of Korea while in the U.S.

Generally, an American sponsor of the WEST program offers participants an internship position that fits their interests and career planning. However, when I was commuting to Queens College where I studied English with other Asians, I had a very sudden feeling that I should be taking my own initiative. “What should I do for this land as a Korean? What will help my life and this society?” After much consideration, I remembered a museum which I passed by every morning on the #7 train.

Queens Museum where the community shares their lives with

The Queens Museum is located in the very same place I lived in the city. New York City is the most well-known international city in the United States. Among the five boroughs of New York, Queens is the largest area where numerous diverse ethnic groups live and work. There are over 140 languages spoken in Queens – it is literally a global village. Queens Museum, located in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, aims to build a bridge for a “uniquely diverse, ethnic, cultural, and international community,” as mentioned on its official website.

Feeling thrilled, I sent an application to the museum. I then had an interview with the manager who eventually offered me an internship position on the “ART ACCESS” Team, the educational department at the Queens Museum. As you can guess from the name, “ART ACCESS,” the team plans and runs programs that allow an easier access to museum for “many diverse people.”

Everyone is beautiful in themselves, and anyone can enjoy ART

Art Access’s programs affiliated with the Queens museum are intended for a diverse variety of ethnic families, and currently include Spanish as well as Korean-language support. Staff members at the museum are very passionate and greatly experienced educators. They always wanted to learn about cultural phenomena from everywhere; and they helped us to teach kids with autism in more effective ways.

I am most grateful that they gave me an opportunity to work on a Korean program named the “K-creative Korean Club,” along with the “Museum Explorer Club,” another main program for kids affected by autism. Educators gave me proper directions and useful advice from their own experiences to plan this program. I traveled a lot in Queens in order to find families who could join the program, and wrote many press releases that I sent to The Korea Times.

After the program, people in the community seemed really glad to have a program with Korean language support. They said, “Sometimes we feel like we lack information about educational programs, but this program provides the kind of information we need, in Korean and for free. It is really a great program!”

What I learned from this program and from my community research is that various minority groups in Queens need social programs in a community space. This is especially true for parents of special-needs kids, because many parents find it difficult to communicate with others. Some Korean families immigrated here for the sake of their children’s special education. They expected that the U.S. would be more open to special-needs kids. I came back to Korea with lasting thoughts about the issue.

What should a museum in a society do for its local community or what could we do together?

After I came back to Korea with an understanding from the experience in New York City, my enduring curiosity regarding the position of museums in a society led me to pursue a variety of creative projects. I managed an art club called “Dongsidae yesul hyangyu Club (Dong-Dong)” for a year in 2015, which was funded by the local government. “Dong-Dong” is a community to enjoy contemporary art.

In Gwangju, there are many places to experience art, such as Gwangju Biennale and the Asia Culture Center (ACC.) However, only a few people seek to support them. We frequently meet with the local emerging artists who actively work and live in Gwangju. I was provided with the chance to visit their studio, and I chaired several discussions about the educational art programs that are available to them. We investigated what it means to be a young productive artist. We also hung participants’ art works on the street and posted our stories on a social media. As my program has grown, a local newspaper, Gwangju Ilbo, interviewed me with the team, and more and more people got interested in our club. Most notably, I remember one of the participants of Dong-Dong saying, “I always thought that ART is a really hard thing- but this is almost nothing!” which made me feel really excited.

My vision: “A museum that does not focus only on a particular kind of visitors.”

As I tried many things after returning home, I eventually found my dream in studying how to 1) connect artists to the community and 2) curate exhibitions with a social message.

I remember a specific day at Queens Museum. That day was the opening of an exhibition that displays paintings made by kids with special needs. I, who came to the exhibition with a puffy face after getting tired of hanging all their artworks the day before, was deeply moved.

Parents said, “This is my son whom I am most proud of in the world.”

Exhibitions by the kids with special needs, educational programs with immigrants, and festivals for the LGBT community are important because they provide a feeling of inclusion to our society. Anyone can enjoy art in the space where they feel love.

I hope to add meaning to my life by trying to improve the community where I live, beyond just studying English in the States. I also learned how public spaces, such as a museum, could be harmonious with not only those who are artistic, but also with a wide range of people.

Finally, I learned that a narrow-minded museum that is only interested in showing off is a waste of money and resources. Museums should not judge the people of its community, because a place of widespread acceptance creates a beauty in the hearts of people. Thus, I want to curate programs that create the path within museums.

Author

Ji Young Lee has an undergraduate degree in Art Theory, and completed an internship in the educational department at the Queens Museum in New York through the WEST (Work, English Study, Travel) program. With interests in a social role of museum and a visitor development, she returned to Korea where she had a wide range of experiences in the art-related field such as the Office for Hub City of Asian Culture, Gwangju and as an assistant curator. She is now working in the promotional team at the Asia Culture Center.