Interviews in Global Catholic Studies: Hansol Goo

HG: Yeah, so my intellectual journey really begins in Rome.I went to Rome in 2012, yeah, 2012, around the time I was working as a graphic designer, actually, in Paris and going through a huge change in my life, and I had already always studied art and fine art and graphic design and I always worked in the art field, but I had an experience of a reversion of faith, so I came back to the Church, and that coincided with my interest in art, so I decided to go to Rome to further my studies, and so I studied the licentiate degree in history and cultural heritage of the Catholic Church, so it was, the program was basically art history, architecture, monuments, you know, archives, museums, and anything that has to do with cultural products of the Catholic Church.It was a very historical sort of program, so we studied from ancient to contemporary, you know, anything that has to do with, like, artistic activities of, you know, 2,000 years, but during the studies of my licentiate degree, my questions grew more theological as opposed to historical, so I was less interested in, you know, historical development of an artistic movement, for example, or, you know, biographical information of an artist, but more about, you know, how do people experience God through art?You know, what leads to that experience?What happens with that experience?And, you know, what is so powerful about image, about visual, about art, that can really kind of, you know, have this, you know, powerful religious experience?