Soomi Park

Staff details

Position Lecturer in Design
Department Design
Email s.park (@gold.ac.uk)
Soomi Park

Soomi is a London-based designer and researcher. Her research crosses the boundaries between design, fiction and cognitive psychology. Through the lens of her research background, her work discusses the complex relationship between emerging technologies and human desires. Her practice encompasses a wide range of mediums, including speculative objects, film, photography, performance, interactive installations and wearables.

Her work has been featured in global media outlets including The New York Times, Vogue Paris, Frame Magazine, The Guardian, Wired UK, and etc. She was a Designer in Residence at the Design Museum in London in 2017. She completed her PhD (thesis titled “Should Robots Blush?”), which focused on using speculative design to research the relationship between social psychology and robotics at the Queen Mary University of London (funded by EPSRC). She holds her MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art in London.

Academic qualifications

  • MA in Design Interactions from Royal College of Art 2013
  • MA in Digital Media Design from Hongik University (IDAS) 2007
  • BA in Multimedia and Animation/ Visual Communication from Sookmyung Women's University 2005

Teaching and Supervision

BA Design Year 1 Lead
BA Design Year 1 Studio Project module convener
BA Design Year 3 Studio Project mentor

Publications and research outputs

Article

Park, Soomi; Healey, Patrick G. T. and Kaniadakis, Antonios. 2021. Should Robots Blush? CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems,

Audio

Yunes, Nour Diab and Park, Soomi. 2023. The Art in STEAM (Femmes Designers Podcasts): Design Fiction, robotics, and Speculating about the future (episode 4).

Stratford, Oli; Park, Soomi; Lebeau, Laura; Schladow, Zoe and van de Poel, Bas. 2023. Disegno Podcasts: Conversations with Map Project Office. Episode 5: Where Next? Should we make friends with tech?.

Book Section

Park, Soomi and Wells, Owen. 2022. Soomi Park & Owen Wells: Between Digital Interaction and Cognitive Psychology. In: Hong Juhee and Kim Hyesu, eds. Lucid Dream: Transdisciplinary Creators. Seoul: Diagrama, pp. 61-68.

Conference or Workshop Item

Park, Soomi; Healey, Patrick G. T. and Kaniadakis, Antonios. 2021. 'Should Robots Blush?'. In: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’21). Yokohama, Japan 8 - 13 May 2021.

Zheng, Caroline Yan; Park, Soomi; Gao, Chang; Robins, Ben; Wairagkar, Maitreyee and Ashford, Rain. 2021. 'How do you give form to sentimental machines?: An Affective Future Round Table'. In: Research Biennale 2021. Royal College of Art, United Kingdom 22 February - 1 March 2021.

Park, Soomi and Wells, Owen. 2020. 'Live Stream Lecture "Between Dreamy and Dreary: Fiction in Design"'. In: Between Dreamy and Dreary: Fiction in Design. Seoul, Korea, Republic of 21 August – 21 November 2020.

Project

Park, Soomi; May, Katherine and Haines, Agatha. 2024. Seminar Series: Design Department Buffets (DDB).

Park, Soomi and Wells, Owen. 2018. Between Dreamy and Dreary.

Park, Soomi. 2018. Should Robots Blush?: Embarrassed Robots.

Park, Soomi. 2013 The Republic of Privacy: Sniffer Dog Authentication.

Park, Soomi. 2013. The Republic of Privacy.

Park, Soomi. 2005. LED Eyelash.

Show/Exhibition

Park, Soomi. 2023. Embarrassed Robots. In: "Femmes Designers - Through Her Lens: Testing boundaries in STEAM", Shoreditch Arts Club, United Kingdom, 19 October 2023.

Park, Soomi and Wells, Owen. 2020. Between Dreamy and Dreary: Fiction in Design. In: "Between Dreamy and Dreary: Fiction in Design", Celine Park Gallery, Korea, Republic of, 21 Aug – 21 Nov 2020.

Park, Soomi. 2019. The Republic of Privacy. In: "The Paradox Of Privacy", Accenture The Dock, Dublin, Ireland, 8 July - 9 September 2019.

Park, Soomi. 2019. Embarrassed Robots. In: "Future Cross Boundaries", Taiwan Design Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, Province of China, 22 January - 14 April 2019.

Park, Soomi. 2018. Embarrassed Robots. In: "Digital Design Weekend", V&A, London, United Kingdom, 22 - 23 September 2018.

Thesis

Park, Soomi. 2023. Should Robots Blush?. Doctoral thesis, Queen Mary University of London

Other

Yunes, Nour Diab; Varelidi, Chloe; Cantera, Ana Laura; Hui, Angela Wei Nok; Park, Soomi; Hage, Nour; Tanaka, Kaoru; Richter-Lunn, Katharina; Zhang, Weidi; Estarita-Guerrero, Ana Carolina; Li, Jiabao; Petric, Maja; Tan, Ling; Soula, Noemie; Zeng, Jiani; Zacharias, Maroula and Yan, Shao. 2023. Femmes Designers. Femmes Designers Ltd..

Further profile content

Media engagements

2018: Rose-Tinted Glasses
An article in Frame Magazine #122 May/June 2018

2018: In London, Designers Play With the Future
An interview with New York Times about the Designers in Residence of the Design Museum

2015: ATM dog: Forgotten your pin? Please join the queue for the dachshund
An interview with The Guardian about the Republic of Privacy project

2016: Soomi Park eyelash extensions: as seen in Vogue Paris
An article in Vogue Paris magazine

Conferences and talks

2021: Should Robots Blush?
A paper presentation at the 2021 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Yokohama, Japan(virtual))

2018: Creating a Design Framework: Creative & Critical Key Stages
Invited Talk at the Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London

2016: Art & Commitment
Invited Talk at the Master-Seminar series hosted by Lukas Pairon at the School of Arts (JASK Conservatorium), Ghent, Belgium

2015: Transitive Wearables
Invited Talk of Open Lecture series at the Copenhagen Institute Interaction Design, Denmark

2014: Transitive Wearables toward Poetic Aesthetics
Keynote Presentation at the Symposium on Fashion Technology(SOFT), Royal Academy of Art, The Hauge, The Netherlands

Grants and awards

2017: Centre for Public Engagement Small Grant Award
Grant awarded for Embarrassed Robots project from Queen Mary University of London

2017: Designers in Residence of the Design Museum
Embarrassed Robots project

2016: Global Design Leader of Korea Institute of Design Promotion(KIDP), South Korea
Transitive Wearable study