From The Ground Up to Growing Up: Building the Archive of Korean Artists in America (AKAA)

The Archive of Korean Artists in America (AKAA) was launched in 2013, inspired by a collection of materials gathered by artist Sung Ho Choi, who had been independently documenting the work and history of Korean American artists since the 1980s. His efforts underscored the urgent need to preserve these histories at an institutional level. Following the establishment of the AHL Foundation in 2003, the organization also began receiving frequent inquiries from curators and researchers seeking information about Korean American artists. This growing interest further emphasized the need for a collective, accessible archive. In response, the AHL Foundation partnered with the Korean Cultural Center New York to organize a series of three exhibitions, laying the groundwork for the archive and formally introducing the project to the broader Korean American art community.

To date, AKAA houses over 40 in-depth interviews with artists across generations, geographies, and practices—from first-generation immigrants and U.S.-born artists to transnational nomads. These stories illuminate cultural hybridity, displacement, resistance, healing, and creative innovation. The artists navigate complex identities, institutional barriers, and sociopolitical realities through performance, public art, abstraction, and digital media.

This presentation will reflect on AKAA’s evolution from a modest exhibition initiative into a multifaceted digital humanities project. It will examine the archive’s technical development—including a recent overhaul of metadata and user experience—and its curatorial strategies for amplifying marginalized voices. AKAA reimagines the archive not as a static repository, but as a living, activist tool for shaping collective memory.