In the past couple of years, streams of online shopping malls have flooded the Internet, beckoning consumers (yes, you!) to freely look around at the comfort of their own desks. There is little you can not buy online nowadays, Ha1art shop (Ha1art), for example, is not the conventional online retailer. Ever wondered if it would even be possible to own something displayed in some foreign museum? This idea has been made possible for the first time in Korea. Ha1art offers such items, giving us an opportunity to have a unique cultural shopping experience.
Ha1art offers a range of museum items from 13 different museums around the globe including The Guggenheim Museum, The Royal Ontario Museum, and The National Gallery. Park Sung-yul, CEO of Ha-1art, tells us more about this multicultural "cyber" art shop. "Whether you've experienced it through travel, or just at home through other sources, you don't have to be an item collector to want a piece of artwork which catches your eye. However, when you're traveling and money is a problem, or if you?e trying to keep your luggage to a minimum, you'll often let the chance pass. This is why Ha-1art was created," says Park.
- Photo provided by Ha1art Shop
Must high culture come at high costs? Park says "no" to this. "We have a wide range of items appropriate for students' economic situation, like mugs, postcards, and stationary with printed artwork on them. In fact, a lot of our online members are women from around 20 to 30 years old. Among them are a handful of college students, especially Design and Arts students, but a more diverse group is forming throughout time."
Culture and marketing condensed, there is another goal behind Ha1art's mindset. "People talk about physical well-being all the time. Well, we want to provide mental well-being. Observing and choosing artwork is a healthy getaway from everyday life," says Park. "Another goal is to aim at bringing a higher sense of art in a friendly way to those who were previously uninterested or have not had a chance to be exposed to it. Ultimately we aim to produce our very own forms of artwork and export them, and do what we"re doing in vice versa fashionselling Korean museum items to foreign countries."
Park's final words for Ewhaians were as follows,"It is important to explore as much as possible when you're still young. For instance, a backpack trip abroad may give you inspiration and confidence to heighten your level of passion in what you pursue. The more you see of this world, the more ideas are bound to follow. As the saying goes, 'The world is so huge, and there is so much to do."