Bojagi: Design and Techniques in Korean Textile Art
Discover one of Korea's culture's most beautiful textile arts:Bojagi!
Bojagi haveplayed an important role in traditional Korean culture and have been used inthe everyday to wrap, carry and store objects. Until the 1950s they were usedto wrap or cover everything from bedding and clothes to food dishes and forreligious rituals. These functional domestic items were not made as a hobby butwere produced along with clothing and bedding items essential in the household.They were an integral part of daily living.
Cook explains the historyand meaning of Bojagi in Korean culture, as well as the equipment and fabrics(including silk, hemp, and ramie); traditional seaming techniques and embellishments,designs, colours, and symbolism; Jagokbo, bojagi pieced from smallscraps of fabric, they have been compared to modern artists such as Mondrianand Klee. Cook shows how contemporary textile artists are interpreting theseideas in their work.
Textile artists andquilters will find a range of ideas to use to inspire them.
From the Author
I first becameinterested in Bojagi in 2009 when I saw the contemporary exhibition My Cup Overflows by Chunghie Lee at theFestival of quilts. I was both intrigued by the construction and captivated bythe use of transparency. Her work was inspired by all those unknown women whohad made beautiful wrapping cloths collectively known as bojagi. This led me tostart researching Korean wrapping cloths and has given me opportunities totravel and subsequently exhibit my own work both in the UK and in Korea.
Invitations byChunghie Lee to attend the Korean Bojagi Forums in 2016 & 2018 introducedme to many exciting new textile artists who have been inspired by theprinciples of bojagi in their work. It has given me the opportunity to workwith teachers and to study museum collections in South Korea.
Researching bojagihas inspired me to experiment with the traditional narrow seams creatingirregular grids. When this is combined with transparency the seaming structurecreates a further linear dimension often revealed in the shadows that they castand has enabled me to evoke the feeling of light moving across the landscape inrecent work like The Grey Line.
For centuriestextiles were one of the few ways Korean women could express their creativity.The design and symbolism in Bojagi now inspire many textile artists around theworld. You will see how bojagi has been reinterpreted in many different typesof media including in temporary land art structures.
This book is the culmination of ten years of research into historic practitioners and artists today, those based in Korea and those practicing across the world. In putting this book together I hope to share this knowledge so that even more people can be inspired by this ancient tradition whose designs can still spark design innovation for the modern textile artist today.
