The 2025 Craft Archive Fellows have published a new essay titled How Korean Paper Became War Collateral, which poses a pointed question about a single word: kozo. That term comes from Japanese papermaking tradition, and it’s the very word that has become an issue for the Korean-American author. The piece appears as part of a larger series dedicated to craft histories that frequently go unrecorded, researched and written by the 2025 Craft Archive Fellows, with organization assistance from the Center for Craft.
The piece begins with an admission of unease. The writer states that each sheet of Korean paper they produce comes with the same question attached to it: “What does it mean to preserve a tradition without flattening the people who created it?”.
The Word That Sits Wrong
kozo is not wrong, and the writer knows it. The writer has taught workshops on it, has worked with its fibers, histories, and technologies for years, and even uses the term themselves. The trouble lies elsewhere.
What the essay describes is a developing awareness. A discipline that professes concern for justice still finds itself at ease with particular kinds of historical amnesia. The writer confesses that they used to believe this response was purely individual. Maybe they were assigning too much weight to a single term. Maybe the unease was theirs alone, a Korean-American bearing family histories that others did not possess.
Then they began paying attention.
What the Author Found
The writer turned to workshop descriptions, artist statements, conference presentations, residency announcements, and teaching materials, and kept finding kozo recurring not merely as a Japanese term or fiber source, but as a way of understanding East Asian paper as a whole. The essay poses the question: “When did one tradition become responsible for speaking on behalf of all the others?”
The answer cannot be separated from history.
A History That Remains Present
To many Americans, Japanese rule over Korea is a historical event long past. To many Koreans, however, its effects remain part of their present lives. From 1910 through 1945, the Korean language was forbidden, Korean names were erased, and Korean customs were forced to give way to imperial power. It was not just a matter of politics; it was a matter of culture. The very means by which people spoke and named themselves became one of the ways empire reshaped identity.
The author’s discomfort comes from a growing realization about the field’s language. A discipline increasingly committed to the language of decolonization remains comfortable with certain forms of historical amnesia. The word kozo has become a category, not just a fiber source. That category makes East Asian papermaking legible through a single tradition.
The Weight of a Name
The essay’s argument rests on the idea that naming holds history within it. When a single tradition’s words come to stand for all others across a wide region, the contributions of other traditions fall into invisibility. The writer makes no claim that Japanese papermaking fails to merit admiration. Years were spent working with its fibers, histories, and technologies. It is taught in workshops.
Between 1910 and 1945, the Japanese occupation of Korea saw the Korean language repressed, Korean names replaced, and Korean cultural traditions made subject to imperial authority. The essay describes it as a cultural project at least as much as a political one.
That history is not something abstract to Koreans; it is a living inheritance passed down through generations.
A Personal and Political Question
This piece shifts between private matters and broader politics. The writer identifies as Korean-American. They produce Korean paper. They instruct in Japanese paper techniques. They dwell within both customs at once. That dual standing supplies the essay’s strength.
The writer argues that the issue of keeping something alive cannot be divorced from those who made the practice in the first place. Turning a craft into a single label is a minor step. Minor steps accumulate. The words we use determine what people notice and what they overlook.
At the heart of the essay lies a question about tradition: how to keep it whole while avoiding the flattening of the people who made it. The author raises it right away, then uses the word kozo and its history as a way into answering it.
This essay argues that custom is not a dead relic kept behind glass. It remains an active habit. It is owned by real individuals, with actual names, pasts, and tongues. The removal of a single term can strip away all of that identity at once.
The Living Inheritance
The writer initially decided the reaction had been directed at them alone. Maybe they were interpreting a single word too heavily. Maybe this unease was entirely their own, a Korean-American papermaker bearing family histories and cultural inheritances that others did not carry.
Workshop descriptions, artist statements, conference presentations, residency announcements, and teaching materials all drew their attention. They kept noticing kozo appearing less as a mere Japanese term or fiber source, and more as a category that made East Asian papermaking legible on its own terms.
The essay makes no claim that kozo functions as a weapon. Instead, it observes that the term carries significant weight. That weight derives from its history. Once the word serves as the category for all East Asian paper, it erases the distinct histories of Korean and other traditions.
This piece belongs to a bigger set of articles. The 2025 Craft Archive Fellows put together and wrote these works. The Center for Craft brought the partnership together. The series looks at craft histories that usually get passed over. Korean paper falls into that category.
The terms we apply and the materials we employ both carry histories, and ignoring either is not a return to the past.
- Series: 2025 Craft Archive Fellows, organized with the Center for Craft
- Timeframe cited: 1910–1945, Japanese occupation of Korea
- Subject term: kozo, a Japanese term and fiber source in East Asian papermaking
Source: hyperallergic.com
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