 Like other Asian people who live in long historical countries, I somehow tended to look down on this young country’s history. ‘to look down’? not sure if this expression is correct or not but anyway I assumed the American history was like a very thin book contained boring and trivial stories. But since studying the American history, I came to realize my thought was totally wrong like being hit by a hammer (The history of this country is also very dynamic!). And this permanent exhibition of MOHAI, talking about the history of Seattle, also hit me. Through the exhibition, I fully felt the pioneer spirit of this city and country. The details and lots of relics in the exhibition seemed to reinforce the city’s short history. And it was impressive for me to be able to know the exact frontiers who first settled down the city and to see pictures taken in the early stage of the city’s development. Seattle has transformed for 200 years seemingly very rapid, building a mill town with 20 buildings from scratch, getting chances to develop from railroad industry, a gold rush, and World Wars, and becoming the international port of the West. All of these processes seemed to achieve by themselves with their wills, like people chose the next stages and made anything possible if they felt need. I think I’m quite overwhelmed by people here’s progressive and positive spirit. The exhibition showed it well and made the city look very attractive. The exhibition design and various interactive installation items that had honored by the American Alliance of Museums and Washington Museum Association also made me enjoy seeing it. Actually, I wanted to see this exhibition because of that. And.. I felt frustrated again. How many creative people there are in this world! Can I survive in this field if I go back? I studied not only the history of Seattle but also many kinds of interesting interactive installations whenever I go to MOHAI. I like the history of city and local history. I used to study and make field trips around Seoul by myself. In case of Seoul, the city which has very long history (if calculating only the period being a capital city of the past countries in the Korean peninsula, it’s been over 600 years), it’s nearly impossible to know all about the city’s history, so I’m interested in especially Seoul’s history of since the 19th century when the last kingdom in Korean peninsula already completed forming the city structure, and was time to face with radical changes not only to the city but also to the whole country. This big city has been formed by building to overlap numerous layers of time and space, and ideologies of people who have lived in the city, which makes the city always streaming dynamic atmosphere and exploding diverse feelings of people like it’s been doing for a long time. Whenever I get to know about the city one by one, I try to imagine and capture the feelings of people and layers of space I’m standing on that have repeated existing and disappearing as the city has developed. because the energy of the land that has been accumulated affects people and space today. It’s very exciting and mysterious experience if you succeed to feel connected. And here the young city also gives me light and fresh feeling. ... I want to say something more about the feeling to Seattle but I can’t continue it in English. Anyway, I realized that my unconscious thought, judging the value of the history based on the amount of time like whether it’s short or long was pointless. Korean version https://blog.naver.com/jnlee89z/221160210051
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