A special exhibition titled "Nature, Hope, and Painting: The Last Stork and the Pine Crane Painting" is currently underway at Kyung Hee University (KHU)’s Seoul campus. It is open to the public from September 10 to November 30, 2024, at the Special Exhibition Hall on the fourth floor of the Central Library.

This special exhibition is organized with the support from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism as part of the 2024 University Museum Promotion Support Project led by the Korean Association of University Museums. It brings together folk paintings from KHU Central Museum (CM)’s collection and bird specimens from KHU Natural History Museum (NHM), offering visitors a rare opportunity to explore how traditional Korean art represents nature and wildlife. These Korean traditional folk paintings, known as minhwa, portray various plants and animals, each carrying its own meaning. Through minhwa, people conveyed their hopes by portraying natural elements without formality. This exhibition focuses on minhwa featuring pine trees and cranes, which were the main sources of the paintings and symbolize longevity and success in life.

Korean traditional painting: minhwa

The exhibition at the CM is organized into four thematic sections, each offering a distinct perspective on nature. The first section, “Capturing Nature in Everyday Life,” explores how minhwa depicted natural elements, providing insights into how nature was intricately connected to daily life in earlier times. The second section, “Painting Hopes and Dreams,” highlights auspicious images like the Pine and Crane Painting, reflecting the aspirations and beliefs of earlier generations. In the third section, “Seeing Nature Beyond the Painting,” visitors can compare historic images of birds with real bird specimens from the NHM, including a preserved male stork—the last known stork to live on Korean soil, hunted in 1971. Finally, “Nature, Hope, and Beyond” presents modern reinterpretations of folk paintings by KHU students, adding sound and motion, engaging visitors with a blend of traditional art and contemporary technology. 

As part of the fourth section, “Nature, Hope, and Beyond,” KHU students formed five teams to offer new insights into minhwa. One of the teams, composed of four students majoring in Korean Painting, created minhwa of their own. Graduate and undergraduate students from Dept. of History came up with the idea of writing down one’s hope in a diary, as people in the past expressed through paintings. Another team of students from Dept. of Philosophy, Geography, and History used a psychological test, which is accessible via a quick response code, to recommend minhwa that best matches one’s preferences along with a suggested travel destination. These exhibits spark the audience’s interest as they connect the past and present through the work of KHU students from various departments.

Overall, this special exhibition, a collaborative effort between the CM and NHM, aims to offer visitors a fresh understanding of the nature and cultural traditions of Korea. Blending features of two museums brings a unique experience and encourages visitors to broaden their perspectives.