JB Life! Volume 2 (Spring 2016)

ARTS
Hanji Industry Support Center
While not only a museum, this conveniently located
center is easy to access downtown on the grounds
of the Korean Traditional Culture Center (KTCC).
The Hanji Industry Support Center offers a less detailed explanation
and history of hanji than the hanji museum does, but also
offers a wider range of experiential programs and products for enthusiasts
to try.
The center’s bottom floor holds a massive hanji manufacturing
room and experiential room for making, dying, and crafting with
hanji. Programs available here (mostly with pre-booking) range
from 30 minutes to an hour and cost anywhere from 500 to 10,000
won, depending what the participants wish to make. Those who
aren’t crafting anything can just roam the manufacturing hall to
observe the various screens and tools used in paper making.
While the center has four floors in total, most of what a general
guest would want to see extends only up to the second floor. Here,
much like at the Hanji Museum, there is a special hall for artist exhibitions
as well as a product exhibition hall and a room for explanations
of the paper’s history and process. Products on display in
the exhibition hall here are a bit more extensive and even include a
hanji wedding dress. The facts in the other display halls are less expansive
than at the paper museum, but they do give guests a chance
to learn many more interesting elements of hanji, particularly the
modern applications. Here are just a few:
• Hanji has applications for making eco-friendly styrofoam.
• Cleansing and fibrillation properties in the paper make it
ideal for manufacturing better filters for cigarettes and even
for cars.
The Hanji Industry Support Center is open Tuesday to Sunday
from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with free admission (unless making hanji).
Find it downtown near Jeonju’s City Hall or online at www.hisc.
re.kr.
ABOVE: A hanji-manufactured wedding dress in the
Industry Support Center’s product hall.
LEFT: The manufacturing and experience room at
Jeonju’s Hanji Industry Support Center.
[Photos by Anjee DiSanto]