Curating Korea: A conversation with Sang-ah Kim, Curator of Korean Collection, British Museum
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
6:00 pm to 7:00 pm
- Venue
- SOAS Gallery
- Room
- BG01
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
Join Sang-ah Kim, Sarah Son (Senior Lecturer in Korean Studies, University of Sheffield) and Charlotte Horlyck (Professor of the History of Korean Art, SOAS) for a conversation about curating Korean art at the British Museum.
Focusing on the newly opened exhibition Korea: 2,000 Years of Creativity and drawing on her experience of working with the Museum’s Korean collection, Sang-ah Kim will share her vision for the exhibition and discuss the opportunities and challenges of presenting Korean art to diverse audiences.
This lecture is co-hosted by the SOAS Centre of Korean Studies, Centre for Korean Studies University of Sheffield and SOAS East Asian Art Research Seminar Series (EAARS).
Header image credit: Mathew Schwartz via Unsplash
About the speakers
Sang-ah Kim has been the British Museum's Curator for Korean collections in the Asia Department since 2021 and is the Lead Curator of Korea (1 October 2026 – 31 January 2027). She is also a contributor and editor of the accompanying publication, Korea: 2,000 years of creativity (2026). Kim is a doctoral researcher in the Department of History and Art and Archaeology at SOAS University of London.
Sarah Son is Director of the Centre for Korean Studies at the University of Sheffield. She completed her PhD at SOAS University of London in 2014 before spending five years working in South Korea’s civil society sector, documenting and reporting on human rights in North Korea. Her research and teaching focus on the politics and international relations of the two Koreas, and includes an interest in the relationship between politics and popular culture.
Charlotte Horlyck received her PhD from SOAS in 2006, and was appointed Lecturer in Korean Art History at SOAS in 2007. Before taking up this position, she curated the Korean collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (1998-2004). Her V&A projects include the curating of the exhibition The Art of Reflection: Mirrors, Messages and Magic (2002). She has held research positions at the Academy of Korean Studies (2006), Seoul National University (2010) and Ewha Woman’s University (2021).
