In 2013, the year of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and South Korea, Professor Hans B. Thomsen initiated a project to survey the Korean art in Swiss museum and private collections to be carried out by two students from the Section for East Asian Art History. The project seeks to create a comprehensive database of Korean art in museum collections and to publish these along with selected pieces from private collections in a catalogue.
The first viewing of Korean objects was in the storage of the Ethnological Collection of the city of Burgdorf, which took place in the framework of a museum research class focusing on this collection.
In 2013 and 2014, the students made a first round of visits to museums, including the Historical and Ethnological Museum in St. Gallen, the Basel Museum of Cultures, the Museum of Ethnography in Neuchâtel and the Rietberg Museum in Zurich. With the cooperation and support of these museums, the project team was able to examine and photograph Korean objects in these collections. They are currently being recorded and researched for the survey.
A second round of museum visits that will include the Historical Museum in Bern, several museums in Geneva, as well selected private collections, is in planning.