This year, Grand Valley State University will be hosting the second joint faculty exhibition with Seoul University of Science and Technology located in Seoul, South Korea to showcase artwork from faculty in the art and design departments at both universities.

The opening reception for this year’s exhibition will be Thursday, Sept. 22 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the art gallery of the Performing Arts Center on the Allendale Campus as a part of the Fall Arts Celebration.

Each professional artist specializes in a different medium and is asked to produce a piece for the exhibit within that specific medium. This year, GVSU faculty members Virginia Jenkins and Hoon Lee contributed 17 pieces and SeoulTech faculty members provided 22.

What makes this exhibition memorable is the intertwining of two different cultures as well as the display of multiple creative media, including: ceramics, digital imagery, graphic design, jewelry and metalsmithing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and video art.

In 2004, Lee a ceramics program coordinator at GVSU and SeoulTech art and design faculty exchange exhibition curator, initiated and facilitated the development of international exchange programs with the South Korean university.

Having completed his undergraduate studies at SeoulTech and served as a professor there for a number of years, Lee sought to further connect with SeoulTech. He wanted to foster international study abroad programs and felt it would be beneficial for both GVSU and SeoulTech to sign a memorandum of understanding in 2008, resulting in the exchange of study abroad students, summer workshops in ceramics for students, visiting artist experiences in ceramics and two exchange exhibits of faculty work.

“(SeoulTech’s) ceramics program is one of the best in Korea,” Lee said. “It’s got a pretty old history and it is one of the biggest departments. So, I thought it would be good to make some kind of connection because I know pretty much all of the faculty teaching there and I know the facilities and how they work, and I know (Grand Valley), too because I am in charge of the ceramics program here.”

In May of 2013, SeoulTech Museum of Art hosted the first GVSU and SeoulTech Art and Design Faculty Exchange Exhibition, which featured 34 pieces of artwork created by SeoulTech faculty members and 17 pieces from GVSU faculty members that were shipped to SeoulTech.

“I think the exchange component, for me, is the most important because it’s not often you get to have and exchange of two cultures that are so far apart from one another,” Jenkins said. “We have the technology that we do today, like email and Skype and all of that, that we can make this happen. Having the exhibit here is just a taste of what it might be like to visit (SeoulTech). I think it’s a way of exposing people to a culture they don’t know much about.”