This paper is a study on the case of the opening exhibition ‘Baedari Match Village Museum’, which is based on the match, by the resource and utilization of modern industrial heritage in In-cheon. The museum is located at 19, Geumgok-ro, Dong-gu, In-cheon, and opened on March 15, 2019. The museum is a village museum based on matches at the site of ‘Chosun Inchon Co., Ltd.’, Korea’s first match factory. This case was carried out in cooperation with three institutions of In-cheon Metropolitan City, Dong-gu, In-cheon, and National Folk Museum of Korea as one of the ‘2019 Year of Incheon Folk Culture’ project.
The problems and limitations of the ‘Baedari Match Village Museum’ are as follows.
First, the museum targeted the first match factory, but the factory was an early colonial industrial heritage established by a Japanese capitalist, and now remains without trace of the factory. This can be connected with colonial modernization theory by distorting the memory of matches, which was a necessity in the past. Colonial industrial heritage should be determined through sufficient public debate prior to resource. Second, the building used in the exhibition is an unlicensed building built in the 1960s and is the building the old ‘Dong-in-cheon Post Office’. Therefore, the opening of the exhibition has been delayed several times due to insufficient review of budget input and remodeling. Third, it is the name of the museum determined through the convergence of public opinion that it is the ‘Baedari Match Village Museum’. However, there are many misconceptions in the name that can be used by those who use the museum as a disguise of the heterogeneous words: the Baedari, matches, and village museums. Fourth, communication with local residents is an important prerequisite for industrial heritage. However, until the museum opened, there was no communication with the residents, only repetition of their arguments, and little effort to find contacts. Fifth, In-cheon is remembered as a space where new cultural objects are met with images such as ‘modern’ or ‘first’ connected to the open port, but imperialism is undermined. In the museum, however, the first modern labor disputes in Incheon, which were conducted by female workers at Chosun Inchon Co., Ltd., were not highlighted, but focused on the emotion of ‘matches’.
In the case of the ‘Baedari Match Village Museum’, residents should be the subjects in order to resource industrial heritage based on academic research. Even though industrial heritage is of high value as a resource, it is simply a sentiment about modern industrial heritage without specialized research and research on it. Soon, such emotional arms are forced to be turned away from the residents or the users. Academic research studies on industrial heritage should support studies such as determining the worker’s life and the location of the industrial heritage. Residents should be the main actors to do resources of industrial heritage. Insufficient communication between locals and locals where industrial heritage is located cannot have full effect, including friction with local people. Therefore, the planner should form a consensus with the residents through discussions such as public hearings, forums, and various briefing sessions from the initial stage, and the residents should be centered on the basis of the resource of industrial heritage.
Finally, in this case, in order to use the industrial heritage museum, it must be linked with local cultural resources and become a lifelong education institution for the local people. Although it is important to give meaning to each of its resources, there must be more to see as each industrial heritage is linked. Recently, various lifelong education institutions have emerged in the region, but they should be reborn as a space for local residents to communicate and retrain by using it as a lifelong education institution that utilizes local meaningful industrial heritage.