Sooah Kwak


Sooah Kwak is a researcher in anthropology and museum professional. Her current research is on leprosy settlement villages in South Korea.

Sooah is a contract Research Scholar at the American Museum of Natural History. Previously, she worked on project Eternal Testimony, an AI archive of Korean “comfort women” oral histories. Sooah holds an MA in Museum Anthropology from Columbia University and a BA in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) and BAS in Art and Technology from Sogang University.

Sooah is also an multimedia artist-activist. Creative projects have been exhibited internationally.

Contact

sooah.k [at] columbia [dot] edu

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Sooah Kwak

is a researcher in anthropology and museum professional. Her current research is on leprosy settlement villages in South Korea.

Contact

sooah.k [at] columbia [dot] edu



The Royal Palace


The Royal Palace is an ethnographic fiction and photo essay about Wanggung, a leprosy settlement village where those affected by leprosy farmed pigs as a state-project of survival. The name Wanggung means “royal palace,” a reference to the ruins of an ancient palace site located in the area. On the highway leading to the site, the ethnographer notices the pervasive stench of hog excrement but pays it little mind. Standing among the ruins, she realizes that the stench has followed her, lingering even in the grandeur of the palace. Guided by the stench, the ethnographer documents Wanggung’s network of humans, pigs, viruses, local stakeholders, reservoirs, rivers, and tidal flats. Through a series of photographs and writing, she traces the entanglements of these actors, revealing a complex ecology where survival, contamination, and history converge.

Art & Technology Conference 2020
«AND»
12/15/2020 - 1/15/2021



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