We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Blair KH Naujok a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Blair KH, thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Korean Image Archive’s mission is to help strengthen Korea’s connection to its past by providing access to historic images discovered, collected, and preserved in the US. Officially we were founded in 2021, but I like telling people we started 60 years earlier when my grandfather, Allen Blair Thompson, photographed a collection of 35mm color slides while serving as a US army helicopter mechanic stationed in South Korea. I don’t know how much of a personal attachment he had to these slides, but they were one of his few possessions my grandmother kept after his passing. For her they carried more meaning as they were images of her home country. Though she never went back to Korea, maybe she wanted something to remember.

Years later I ended up moving there, specifically to her hometown of Seoul. But it was after I already spent 3 years in Korea, during a return visit to see family in the US when I first saw these slides. Ironically the event happened with little fanfare. My grandmother walked into my room with a plain looking cardboard box, set it down and said “I know you like pictures. These were your grandpa’s.”

I scanned these slides and brought the files with me back to Korea. Walking the same streets and seeing the same landscapes that surrounded her and my grandfather 60 years ago deepened my connection to these images. As this exploration showed me her history, in turn I better understood myself and my place in this country. Then when showing them to friends and colleagues, I often heard “these are so rare. I’ve never seen this part of our history in color.” Life taught me that if you have something good, you need to share it. That would happen soon enough.

After one final year in Korea, I moved back to the US in January 2020. The pandemic halted the world just a couple months later and with it my immediate plans to re-adjust were disrupted. It put me in a transitional space with nothing to transition too, but it also gave me an opportunity. I decided to make the most of the lockdown and built (with some help from others) Korean Image Archive.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Korean Image Archive has two main areas of focus. Archiving is our first. We start by collecting historic Korean photo material discovered here in the US, usually through online auction websites, antique shops and militaria shows. This material usually comes in the form of 35mm slides and black & white photo prints photographed by US soldiers stationed in Korea. We make archival scans (basically an extremely high-quality digital copy) once they’re in our possession and preserve the physical images accordingly. Then we research the images to glean whatever history we’re able. Oftentimes images arrive as collections, being photographed by the same person around the same area during a specific period of time, so this information feeds into each other. However, this is only half our workflow.

It’s my belief that without public access, these images may as well not exist, so the final steps in processing a photo is to upload and determine its proper place on our website, KoreanImage.com. We try to make it as easy as possible to discover images. It’s filled with over 170 galleries organized by subject matter alone, and they get very specific. City gates, mixed-race Koreans, advertisements, and dogs are just a few. Location is another organizing category and starts with the province, then narrows down to the city, neighborhood and specific site when known. Additional galleries include decade (sub-divided by year) and collection which is always accompanied by a brief background to tell visitors how a series of photographs is tied together and the history they portray.

Our second area of focus is partnership as we’re also a resource for artists and academics looking for historic Korean images to supplement and enhance their projects. Professional integrity asks for material from a trusted institution. Working as an archive that focuses on originally sourced and preserved material allows us to be that source for others. We’re always happy to facilitate image requests because we understand the historic and cultural value each image contains. Each person who uses these images further conveys this value to others and additionally brings new historic understandings to light.

I’m most proud of two occasions where others used our images. The first happened shortly after the Archive went public. An Incheon-based historian (who I was fortunate to personally connect with before leaving Korea) licensed several images in his history book Traces of Memory, which is about the US military and local Korean relationship in the neighborhood where my grandfather was stationed. One of my grandfather’s photographs appears in this book, and I received two physical copies: one for the archive and one for my mother to keep. The second occasion happened a year later when a curator from that same neighborhood requested images for an in-person exhibit, City of Headbanger, detailing the local music scene’s history. Several of my grandfather’s photos also appeared here. My mother told me he preferred sketching and painting to photography as a hobby. I believe he’d still be happy to know this photography not only survived but was viewed by others.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Korean Image Archive is one step in a series of goals I set for myself. Not all went as intended, but each attempt taught me a necessary lesson that poured into a future. My personal drive didn’t really form until my college years, so I’ll start there.

I studied film in with a focus on film theory and directing. Intentionally deferring graduation by a year allowed me to accomplish two things. 1) it extended my volunteer commitment at a local film archive. Though it wasn’t an archivist role, being in this space every week for two years gave me insight into archiving, and I built a connection with a supervision who later acted as an archival advisor for us. 2) I directed a final thesis film. Though it wasn’t actually required for graduation, it felt necessary to wrap up my time with a big project. I lacked funds, but with ample passion and support proudly graduated with a 63-minute film, learning the importance in narrowing focus on what achievable.

Months later I moved to Seoul. Youthful confidence told me I’d have no issue despite never even visiting before and knowing maybe 50 words in Korean. I committed to daily self-studies and intentionally meeting non-English speakers. This eventually led to jobs on various commercials and independent dramas. A director-turned-friend from one project connected me with a professor who invited me to audit his graduate film production courses. Here I worked as a cinematographer on a series of short films and befriended many classmates who (among others) attested to the value of my grandfather’s photos. The cinematographer jobs themselves developed my camera skills to the point where I had the confidence to make a final film before moving back to the US. But what was the film? This is when I took time to track down the locations where my grandfather took his photographs and learned the past exists alongside the present if you know what to look for.

These experiences and lessons led to Korean Image Archive. It started with a box of three hundred 35mm color slides. Now we have 2519 images on file, a mix of more slides, black and white photo prints, and a small but growing 8mm film collection. I’m not the only one working on this anymore; we have a team of volunteers who joined after learning about our background and mission. We made it this far in a few short years. I wonder where we’ll end up over the next decades. I’ve made this my life’s work.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Outside our institutional goals, one thing above all else keeps me going: my need to stay connected to a place that’s important to me. I thought my second move to Seoul was permanent. I could list all reasons I liked living there, though a list wouldn’t do it justice. It’s deeper than that.

Living where your family has direct history brings a familiarity I haven’t encountered elsewhere. And forming relationships with people who recognize your shared heritage makes it even more comforting. I lived a very different life in Korea, one I haven’t successfully replicated since moving back to the US. My work at the Archive, using my second language, keeping in touch with people I care about and meeting new people through our work gives me a semblance of what I had there. Maybe it will get me back someday.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.koreanimage.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/koreanimage/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KoreanImageArchive
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/koreanimage

Image Credits
Photo 1 by Ryan Lackey Photos 2, 4, 6, 8 by Allen Blair Thompson Photos 7, 9 by Blair KH Naujok