| Introduction |
The Shuim Museum (the Korean word shuim means rest) was founded to highlight the wise methods used by our ancestors for dealing with death. The exhibit centers around objects such as hearses, palanquins used to display and carry funeral tablets, and old photographs, which show the traditional culture of funeral processions. This museum is also intended as a shuimt’?, which means resting place, for people of our day and age who are on the go all the time and never stop to rest.
Through the humoristic expressions on the various figurines that decorate the hearses, we discover the pure beauty of the ancestral Korean popular art. Mythological animals such as the dragon and the phoenix are said to protect the soul as it makes its way to the after-life. Flowers, birds and fish, as well as other images borrowed from real life, help us perceive and understand the universe, at least to a certain degree.
This museum was created in the home of the founder, and is meant to be a haven of peace and tranquility where we can contemplate the troublesome reality of life and death as it affects us in our daily life. Through a program of exhibits showing the work of contemporary artists as well as special exhibits of ancient objects that belong to the museum itself, the curators intend to consider the various aspects of human life.
Just as we arrive in this life through “the door of birth”, we can spend a moment reflecting on “the door at the end”, thanks to the Shuim Museum, and thus, it seems to me, we should feel a greater appreciation of the present moments of our life, and share our awareness of their precious beauty.
Based on the remarkable philosophy of our ancestors who were convinced that death is a contiuation of life, the Shuim Museum has been created to preserve an aspect of Korean culture that, unfortunately, we tend to forget, and to create a new cultural complex that links traditional Korean culture and contemporary art.
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