Waiting for the 60th anniversary for Chonnam National University, I would propose to start building a university museum on Yongbong campus. CNU’s history is full of valuable experiences to remember and spirits to revive. Especially when we talk about Korean democratization, we wouldn’t be able to do so without referring to what has been done by people of this great University. Continuing the distinct cultural heritage of Honam intelligentsia, CNU people have also contributed a lot to major intellectual and socio-economic development of this region. Being one of several big national universities, CNU has been a major actor to create all the aspects of national history, too.
By having a memorial museum for the university, we can keep, learn and revive memories to create and maintain the collective university identities for the living generation who are to make today’s history. That is why all the leading universities of the world maintain museums for themselves. In the contemporary age of “glocalization” (globalization plus localization) when multiple identities are competing with each other, in particular, we need all the more to enhance our own identities in order for our institution to simply survive.
When we design the CNU memorial museum, however, we should be careful not to make a fossilized exhibit which compels knowledge or a museum as a show window. A museum which ignores cultural tradition and does not care about emotional sympathy cannot answer the needs of the public. The goal of all memorials is to transmit memories vividly beyond the wall of generations. If memory is eventually inherited by the next generation beyond this deep river of oblivion, it should wear the clothes of culture.
Thus to create CNU’s memorial museum, we need to first study, and ponder widely and deeply over, this university’s history. We have to reach a consensus on the gist of this university’s history. Then we can pick up an elaborate symbol and a representational strategy which covers our cultural peculiarity and cultural sympathy. In the memorial museum, historical facts have to be expanded into values of cultural memory through emotional experiences.
I would also recommend that the memorial museum adopt a personified exhibition. Success of a live memorial depends on internal association of visitors. In exhibitions, visitors accept meaning and value of events and honor them actively when they find specific persons who they can identify with. Great CNU persons who have sacrificed their lives for the public can be studied and memorialized. Yun Sang-won, the hero of the May 18 Uprising, may be the first candidate. To select someone as a cover figure for the CNU Memorial Museum though, we must reach a consensus beforehand about the top value of CNU history. It naturally takes time. Therefore, I would urge the university to form a task-force group as soon as possible and begin the study and discussion of CNU’s history.