Event to be held at OCI Museum of Art in Susong-dong, Jongno-gu

Silicon spotlighted as common material linking Joseon white porcelain and semiconductors

Registration open via Google Form on OCI Museum of Art's Instagram

Poster for the 2026 Roundtable at OCI Museum of Art. [OCI Museum of Art]
Poster for the 2026 Roundtable at OCI Museum of Art. [OCI Museum of Art]

OCI Museum of Art announced Thursday that it will host a roundtable titled "So It Was All Silicon" at 2 p.m. Nov. 20 in the museum's fifth-floor auditorium.

The event marks the 10th anniversary of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's designation of the museum's signature piece — a white porcelain bottle with blue underglaze cloud and swastika patterns bearing the Unhyeon inscription — as a tangible cultural heritage of Seoul.

The work is a white porcelain piece believed to have been commissioned and used at Unhyeongung, the residence of Heungseon Daewongun in the 19th century.

The roundtable centers on silicon (Si) as the key material connecting traditional art and advanced technology.

Four experts from the fields of art and science will examine how different disciplines developed around the same material and explore silicon's cultural and industrial significance.

The first session, "Silicon: From White Porcelain to Polysilicon," will feature presentations by field.

Jang Ki-hun, head of the cultural division at the Korea Ceramic Foundation and director of the Gyeonggi Ceramic Museum and Art Museum, will introduce the mining and supply of white clay used in Joseon white porcelain. Lee Jeong-yong, a professor and ceramicist at the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage, will discuss the aesthetic form of white porcelain as it takes shape through refining clay and firing.

Han Min-su, a professor in the heritage technology department at the Korea National University of Cultural Heritage, will explain differences in silicon dioxide content by white clay deposit and changes in silicon dioxide crystals during firing. Kim Ki-seop, a senior managing director in the R&D infrastructure division of OCI's Central Research Institute, will draw on roughly seven years of experience at OCI TerraSus in Malaysia to describe how silicon is refined into polysilicon.

The second session, "Experts Talk Silicon," will cover the use and transformation of silicon dioxide shared by Joseon white porcelain and polysilicon manufacturing technology, as well as the distinctive characteristics and value of each process, followed by a question-and-answer session with attendees.

Yu Je-uk, a curator at OCI Museum of Art, will moderate the event and guide a conversation spanning art and science.

Registration is open through a Google Form posted on OCI Museum of Art's official Instagram account.


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