Before actress Ashley Park jetted off to Paris and Rome to star as Emily in Paris’ Mindy Chen, she was a New Yorker for a decade, and often performed on Broadway—most notably, she earned a Tony nomination for the role of Gretchen Weiner in “Mean Girls.” But despite her global success on stage and screen, she admits there was always a cultural disconnect in her life.
“Growing up as a Korean American, I separated my Korean life from being American,” the 34-year-old star told Travel + Leisure. “My Korean heritage was at church, through my grandma’s cooking, or at home, and it often felt like I couldn’t be American if I had that in my life.”
But now she’s returned to New York City, proudly showcasing her roots while debuting a new immersive installation,”Chroma: Tales Between Hues,” at the Genesis House, a Korean cultural hub with a restaurant, teahouse, and cellar stage alongside a showroom of vehicles from Hyundai’s luxury car brand.
Leaning on Park’s knack for storytelling, the exhibit includes six installations inspired by Korean folklore and the obangsaek (the traditional Korean color spectrum) of blue, red, yellow, white, and black.
“What I love about Korean folklore is the morals of honesty and empathy,” she said. “I really associate it with my grandma and my parents because they raised me with those morals.”
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While audiences may be most familiar with her moving rendition of “La Vie en Rose” from the first season of Emily in Paris and her Grammy-nominated performance on “The King and I” soundtrack, the first music Park recalls hearing from her own childhood are Korean folk songs, which were often paired with traditional folktales.
Through the process of curating the exhibition, she feels she was able to connect with her culture even more deeply. “Genesis House was so great at having me reflect on my own relationship with Korean heritage and figure out what certain colors evoke for me and what memories those have for me,” Park said. “I found that the more specific something is, the more universal it can be, because we all feel the same things.”
As guests step into the exhibit, they’re given a guide to help them navigate through the colors, starting with black and white, which symbolize vulnerability and resilience. They then step into a yellow world (representing integrity) that was inspired by the fable, “Gold Axe, Silver Axe.” Next comes the red world of unconditional love from the folktale, “Cowherd and the Weaver Girl,” about two cosmic lovers who reunite once a year.
Moving through the installation, guests are then enveloped by the blue hues of empathy that detail the tale of the “Hare’s Liver.” In a final, emotional exhibition, the five colors come together, which demonstrates the harmony of the hues—and the world we live in.
“I’m hoping that all people, whether they understand certain languages or not, are leaving with the same kind of sense of reflection,” she said.
To Park, in addition to being able to explore all the complex themes in her exhibit, having it all take place in the middle of Manhattan also felt very significant to her.
“We’re in the mecca of everything in this beautiful building, and not only am I able to share my Korean culture, but it’s in such a modern, fresh way,” she said. “They’re taking such a futuristic and imaginative way of expressing the culture that’s accessible to everyone … It’s the opposite of what I—and probably many of us have been doing—growing up and trying to hide our culture. Not only are we sharing it, we’re making it welcome.”
Genesis House
After the pop-up exhibit, guests can check out Genesis House’s on-site restaurant, which spotlights Korean cuisine—a beloved (and delicious) fixture of Park’s formative years.
“My grandma’s an incredible cook and we’d always have some sort of stew, like seolleong tang or doenjang jjigae,” she said. One dish that is particularly meaningful to her is miyeok guk, a seaweed soup traditionally eaten by women after childbirth. When she battled cancer as a teen, she had the soup quite a bit. “I ate a lot of miyeok guk when I had leukemia, because it’s really good for anemia,” she said.
These days, she often craves bibimbap and kimchi, and she loves that the latter can be found everywhere—she hopes to soon learn how to make them herself. “I was actually just talking to my grandma today about how I need to start learning to be confident in making the food,” she said.
Still on her agenda as well: a proper visit to Korea. “I want to be able to go for a while—hopefully one day,” she said.
But for now, she’s just proud to share this slice of her heritage with the world. “I’ve never seen anything like this, with floor-to-ceiling LED lights, your entire being is embodied in this show,” she said. “There’s a constant movement and pace in New York City, but the time you spend down there is a time of reflection—I don’t think New Yorkers give themselves the time to think and feel.”
“Chroma: Tales Between Hues” is free and open to the public from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. It will be on exhibit until Dec. 14, and is located on the cellar level of the Genesis House at 40 10th Avenue in the Meatpacking District.
