Lina Koo

Lina Shinhwa Koo's research interest is focused on the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century design history of Korea, Japan, and China, especially in the domains that intersect crafts/designed objects, handmade/mass-produced, and traditional/modern. Implementing interdisciplinary and cross-cultural research methods, Koo is interested in interrogating colonial visual politics and the construction of national identities traversing various mediums and genres with discourses on modernity, coloniality, and decoloniality. 

Lina Shinhwa Koo's PhD dissertation is a comprehensive study of East Asian ethnic dolls from the early twentieth century and how the material culture relates to global tourism, colonial labour system, and identity politics.