The National Folk Museum of Korea has been conducting the “Year of the Regional Folk Culture"
project since 2006. The content of this paper consists of the development process of the Special
Exhibition of The Year of 2008 Jeonbuk Folk C비ture, {Memories through the Year: a Farmer's
Story} and issues relating to holding a regional folk culture exhibition in the capital city of Seoul
{Memories through the Year: a Farmer’s Stoπ} exhibition was based on the concept that a history
was made with collected stories of ordinary folks' lives and it was an attempt to shed a new light on
ordinary objects by relocating them to a special space.
‘πle Year of the Regional Folk Culture' exhibition was a c∞peratlve proJeα between the National
Folk Museum of Korea located in Seoul and the local government. Therefore, the subject of the
exhibition needed to meet both institutions’ objectives and mutual understanding. A region could
be defmed around the location of the capital. So the most basic element to consider was the spa디al
foundation. {Memories through the Year: a Farmer's Sto마} exhibition primarily 띠ed to find its
regionallty in the land. Considering 700/0 of the local residents in the north Jeolla province lived in
the vast field of the Honam region, a farmer’s life seemed to naturally come up as an ordinary folk
who had been living in the region all his life. Since displayed objects were prerequisite in an
exhibition, a fiαitious person named Mr. Kim was created. Also, the lives of the local people who
had been living in Gwanghwal-myeon, Gimje-si cultivating the land, had been reconstructed
through their oral history. πle e양libition space was set up for the regional people to meet the
visitors direαly through interview footage and to gain authenticity. πle visitors were to experience a
story of an old v피ager of Gwanghwal-myeon, Gimje-si, as κ liste띠ng to their grandfathers’ tales.
The exhibition was evaluated as an opportunity to raise interest in the regional history and α was
well accepted by the visitors as a rare chance to see an ordinary life in a museum where
extraordinary objeαs were normally exhibited.