Alumni Spotlight: Sooa Im McCormick

After graduation, I taught at Hampshire college as a visiting professor of East Asian art for 1 year. At the time, I was primarily interested in academic positions, but a KU alumnus who I respected very much told me about a newly opened position—as assistant curator of East Asian Art with an emphasis on cross-cultural aspects of East Asian art—at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA).



During my in-depth interview, I learned about the joint-program between the CMA and the art history department at the Case Western Reserve University, which I appreciated since it mean that I could continue to teach if I wanted to. Over the last 8 years, my position has changed from assistant curator of East Asian art to an endowed position as Korea Foundation Curator of Korean Art specializing in both historical and contemporary Korean art.



Since I joined the CMA in 2015, I have organized several special exhibitions: Chaekgeori: Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens (2017); Gold Needles: Embroidery Arts from Korea (2020); Into the Seven Jeweled Mountains (2024); and Korean Couture: Generations of Revolution (2024). In each exhibition, I tried to bring new perspectives that resist conventional narratives. For example, Gold Needles explored issues of gender and socio-economic complexity and Korean Couture challenged both the concept and practice of “couture” from an inclusive perspective. Being a public scholar who frequently interacts with general audiences through exhibition and education programs constantly inspires me to connect my scholarship with important societal issues.

Looking back, I didn’t realize how culturally diverse KU and city of Lawrence are and how intellectually inclusive the KU art history program is. I believe this atmosphere shaped who I am today, not only as a scholar, but also a person who strives to engage in critical inquiry.

My biggest advice for current graduate students is to develop the skill to interact professionally with others whose ways of understanding and interpreting social and political issues may be vastly different from your own.