On April 24, 2026, the talk session ”Bridge to Asia: Asian Photography in Global Circulation” was held at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. The session was organized as part of the official program of AIPAD The Photography Show, one of the world’s leading photography events.
 
AIPAD The Photography Show is a major platform that connects the international photography market with broader photographic discourse, bringing together photography galleries, collectors, curators, and researchers.
 
Within this official program, the session addressed Asian photography as an independent agenda and examined its historical accumulation and potential for international circulation from the perspectives of research, institutions, and platforms.

The session was moderated by Maggie Mustard, Assistant Curator of Photography at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs at The New York Public Library.
 
The speakers were Jeehey Kim, Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Arizona, and Jeong Eun Kim, Director of The Reference, a photography-focused space in Korea, and Director of T3 PHOTO ASIA.
 
The session examined how Asian photography has been accumulated within global photographic discourse, while also considering the institutional and critical gaps that have kept it from gaining sufficient visibility.
 
 
 
Jeehey Kim Examines the Historical Accumulation of Asian Photography
 
Professor Jeehey Kim emphasized that Korean and Asian photography have long existed within international photographic history. Drawing on years of research, she explained that Asian photography had already been produced and circulated across international contexts, while the critical and institutional structures needed to interpret and connect it through the language of global photographic history had yet to be sufficiently developed.

Kim presented as key examples the works of Western photographers such as Felice Beato, Dorothea Lange, and Margaret Bourke-White, who photographed Korea from the nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. Their works entered the canon of photographic history through the collections of major American institutions.
 
By contrast, the works of Korean photographers from the same period, including Lim Eung-sik and Han Youngsoo, despite possessing comparable artistic value and historical significance, received far less recognition within international critical frameworks.
 
This asymmetry points to the structures through which photographic history has been written, collected, and circulated. Kim also referred to the first international photography salon held in Korea in 1963 and the founding of the Federation of Asian Photographic Art (FAPA) in 1964, explaining that an international photographic network had already been formed within Asia.

Jeong Eun Kim Discusses the Current State of Korean Photography Institutions and the Need for Platforms
 
Jeong Eun Kim addressed the gap between the historical accumulation of Korean photography and the comparatively late development of its institutional foundations.
 
She noted that while the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum in Japan opened in 1995, Korea’s public photography museum, Photo SeMA, opened in 2025, marking a gap of approximately thirty years.

This gap does not merely indicate a delay in time; it reveals the absence of an institutional framework through which photography has been systematically collected and preserved as an independent artistic medium at the public level.

In this regard, the launch of Photo SeMA marks not only a belated beginning but also a critical starting point for establishing an acquisition policy capable of reconstructing the history of Korean photography in a coherent and structured manner.

Moving forward, decisions regarding which artists to collect, which periods to prioritize, and what criteria to apply will ultimately shape the official history of Korean photography
 
Kim explained the role of private institutions such as Museum HANMI in partially filling this gap. Before a public institutional foundation had been fully established, private institutions preserved the materials and memory of Korean photographic history and accumulated artists and works in forms that could support research.
 
She emphasized that these activities went beyond exhibition-making and helped establish a foundation through which Korean photography could maintain historical continuity and expand into international discussion.

T3 PHOTO ASIA as a Platform Connecting Research and the Market
 
Jeong Eun Kim connected these questions of institutional absence and historical accumulation to the need for a contemporary platform. T3 PHOTO ASIA, which she directs, was presented as a platform that seeks to reorganize Korean and Asian photography through the intersecting structures of research, exhibitions, the market, and discourse.
 
The platform extends beyond the conventional function of an art fair. Through T3 PHOTO ASIA, Kim proposes a structure that brings together the historical genealogies and contemporary currents of Asian photography, while linking them to the international photography market and critical discourse.

The ’Masters’ program, presented in the first edition, reconsidered postwar photography in Korea and Japan within a comparative research framework, highlighting the historical layers of Asian photography.
 
The ’Discover New Asia’ program introduced new directions in contemporary Asian photography through the sensibilities and image-making practices of the post-internet generation.
 
Together, the two programs expanded Asian photography into a field where historical accumulation and contemporary practice can be examined in relation to one another.
 
 
 
The Infrastructure Question Surrounding Asian Photography
 
A shared issue that emerged throughout the session was the infrastructure required for Asian photography to gain sustained international visibility. The question concerns how works are researched, collected, interpreted, and connected to global contexts.
 
For photography to be meaningfully understood within a global framework, the achievements of artists and works must operate alongside a complex structure that interprets, preserves, and circulates them. Research restores historical genealogies; institutions accumulate materials and works; and platforms connect them to exhibitions, the market, and international discourse. The session emphasized that when these processes work together, Asian photography can move beyond a regional category and become a significant axis of global photographic history.
 
From this perspective, T3 PHOTO ASIA was presented as a practical model for the international circulation of Asian photography. By repositioning existing histories, artists, and works within a language and structure that can be read globally, and by circulating them through research, institutions, the market, and discourse, the platform offers a way to consider the next stage of Asian photography.
 
 
 
A Shift in the Way Asian Photography Enters Global Discourse
 
“Bridge to Asia” examined how the accumulated histories and practices of Asian photography can be reconnected within an international context. The significance of the session lies in its focus on a field that has long existed but has remained insufficiently visible, and in its attempt to reconsider that field through the interconnected structures of research, institutions, platforms, and the market.

The discussion positioned Asian photography beyond a peripheral category or regional specialty. It emphasized the need to reconsider its historical depth and contemporary potential within global photographic discourse. In this sense, the session pointed to a shift in how Asian photography enters the international field: from occasional introduction to structural connection.
 
In conclusion, the “Bridge to Asia” talk session offered an important occasion to consider how Asian photography may be positioned as a significant axis within contemporary photographic history.

Presented within AIPAD’s official program, the discussion suggested that the future international circulation of Asian photography will depend on the sustained development of research, institutional frameworks, curatorial platforms, and market structures capable of supporting visibility over time.