This past week for work we took some of our students to a museum. I love museums, always have. So this trip was enjoyable to me. there was an exhibition about pottery. There are frequently pottery exhibitions. Korea is a ceramicists dream, I am not a ceramicist.
But I am a lover of all things art and art history and human history. Some of the exhibits have translations of the information, the tour was given in Korean to our students. As I listened to the guide speak and picked out a word here and there or a tiny phrase I realized I didn't need to know Korean to understand what she was speaking about.
I have read much about the pottery and the evolution of pottery with each wave of conquest. their kilns are incredible. It strikes me that the history of pottery in Korea is a history of human adaptation and cultural survival against the constant pressure of colonization by other people, war and infighting.
This particular pottery was from the three kingdoms era 50bce-700ce roughly, and most was from the Baekje region. I have seen this pottery many times in museum visits all over Korea, but the real moment for me was standing in a museum looking at pieced together shards of pottery with the same markings and features as the shards of pottery I walk over when when walking park forest trails.
Where I walk barefoot is known to have had settlements its a historical landmark and the rains wash stuff up out of the ground. So its not uncommon to walk and see ancient pottery shards alongside stones and sticks and pine cones. You do not pick things up here. We leave things alone. I take pictures for my records of my life. They left behind pottery. I leave behind words and photos and art.
And life marches on
I walk among the dead and the living I realize just how connected we all are
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