Incheon to Host ‘Korean Emigration History Photo Exhibition’ for World Korean Business Convention

Marking the 24th World Korean Business Convention and World Korean Week, the City of Incheon will hold a photo exhibition shedding light on 120 years of Korean emigration. The exhibition retraces, through photographs and historical records, the journey that began at Jemulpo Port and led to today’s community of 7 million overseas Koreans.

[코리안투데이] Promotional image for the ‘Korean Emigration History Photo Exhibition: Crossing the Seas, Connecting the World’ © 장형임 기자

The Incheon Metropolitan Government (Mayor Park Chan-dae) announced that it will hold the exhibition ‘Korean Emigration History Photo Exhibition: Crossing the Seas, Connecting the World’ for three days from September 28 to 30 in the lobby of the first-floor exhibition hall at Songdo Convensia. Organized to coincide with the 24th World Korean Business Convention, the exhibition is open to all visitors free of charge.

The photo exhibition was planned to convey to overseas Koreans and citizens, both at home and abroad, the identity of Incheon as the historical starting point of Korean emigration. By documenting how the emigrants who left Jemulpo Port a century ago expanded into Korean communities around the world, the exhibition allows visitors to survey in one place the history of how the 7 million overseas Koreans came to form and grow.

The exhibition is organized around seven themes. Through photographs and historical materials, it unfolds the history of overseas migration by era — the early emigration to Hawaii and Mexico, the forebears who headed to the continent in the cause of the independence movement, and the miners and nurses dispatched to Germany. In particular, the theme ‘Incheon Once Again’ highlights the historical links that have connected Incheon with overseas Koreans — including Jemulpo Port, the point of departure for emigration, as well as Inha University and the Overseas Koreans Agency — and presents a vision of Incheon’s future as it moves from a place of departure to a hub city for Koreans worldwide.

A special exhibition zone commemorating the 60th anniversary of the dispatch of Korean nurses to Germany will also be operated. Through rare photographs of the nurses sent to Germany and letters they sent to their families, it illuminates the lives of those who devoted themselves in an unfamiliar land and laid the foundation for the Republic of Korea’s economic development.

Participatory programs allowing visitors to experience firsthand the meaning of emigration history have also been prepared. The exhibition hall will offer ongoing activities such as a photo-exhibition word quiz, writing a one-line letter to overseas Koreans, engraving a Chinese cedar bookmark, and an emigration-history-themed photo zone, along with professional docent programs to aid visitors’ understanding.

Kim Young-shin, Director-General of the International Cooperation Bureau of the city, said, ‘The footsteps of our emigrant ancestors, who carried hope as they crossed the rough seas a century ago, have blossomed today into the great fruit of a 7-million-strong overseas Korean community.’ He added, ‘We hope this photo exhibition will be a meaningful occasion for both overseas Koreans and citizens to hold the history of Korean emigration deep in their hearts, and for Incheon and Koreans around the world to be firmly reconnected once again.’

지역 홍보대사 신청 기자양성과정 신청 코리안투데이 지부장 신청 코리안투데이 인천강화

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