The Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK) has partnered with the Korea Heritage Service to launch "Strolling Through Korean Gardens," an innovative exhibition that brings Korea's traditional garden heritage to life through cutting-edge digital technology. Opening on September 11, 2025, this groundbreaking exhibition offers British audiences an unprecedented opportunity to experience the philosophy, beauty, and poetic essence of Korean gardens through immersive digital environments and multisensory storytelling.
The exhibition transforms the Korean Cultural Centre UK into a contemplative space designed for quiet movement and deep reflection. Visitors begin their journey in the Foyer Project, where digital imagery introduces them to various Korean gardens, evoking the historical connection between gardens and scholarly life. This introductory space encourages visitors to slow down both physically and mentally as they enter the atmospheric world of traditional Korean landscape design.
The centerpiece of the exhibition features expansive projections of Korea's most celebrated historical gardens, including Soswaewon, Bokildo Yun Seon-do Garden, and the Secret Garden of Changdeokgung Palace. These stunning visual presentations are based on high-resolution digital surveying data that the Korea Heritage Service has been collecting and preserving since 2021. Through advanced projection mapping technology and newly commissioned soundscapes directed by renowned composer Jang Young-gyu, visitors can experience the seasonal rhythms and architectural elegance of these gardens as they were historically enjoyed by scholars and royalty.
The exhibition creates a fully immersive multisensory experience through subtle atmospheric effects including morning mist, authentic birdsong, and moonlit stillness. These carefully crafted elements allow visitors to fully immerse themselves in the sophisticated aesthetics of Korean landscape design, experiencing gardens not just as visual spaces but as complete sensory environments that engage all the senses.
A central feature of the exhibition explores the concept of "Chakyung," or borrowed scenery, which is a fundamental principle in Korean garden aesthetics. A dedicated gallery space recreates the authentic experience of sitting inside a "jeongja" (an open pavilion), offering visitors a carefully framed view of nature beyond—capturing a fleeting moment held in perfect stillness. This installation captures the essence of Korean garden design as both an act of perception and cultivation, where space and view are composed with the same care as poetry.
The final section, titled "Between Two Gardens," invites deep reflection on how gardens function as spaces of ritual, memory, and imagination across cultures and time periods. This thoughtful conclusion brings together contemporary video works, literary reflections, and translated texts, including "Korean Tea Classics" by Brother Anthony of Taizé. Featured artistic works include "Planetarians" by Ellie Kyungran Heo and "A Letter from a Million Years Ago" by Jihae Hwang, which explore the complex and interwoven relationship between humans and the natural world.
These contemporary works draw inspiration from encounters with modern city parks as well as the distinctive terrain and medicinal plants of Jiri Mountain, one of Korea's most revered natural landscapes. Collectively, the works in this section position the Korean garden not merely as a historical artifact but as a site of global relevance—an artistic and philosophical space where fundamental ideas about beauty, ecology, and life itself are continually reimagined and reinterpreted for contemporary audiences.
Dr. Seunghye Sun, FRSA, Director of the Korean Cultural Centre UK, emphasized the exhibition's broader significance: "A garden is a powerful symbol that connects nature, humanity and culture. In the nation of gardens, it is a joy to present the beauty of Korean traditional gardens through cutting-edge digital technology. The emotions we share through gardens embody a future aesthetics of coevolution between nature, humanity and technology, and I am deeply grateful to the Korea Heritage Service for making this exhibition possible."
This ambitious exhibition represents a unique collaboration between cultural institutions and demonstrates how digital technology can preserve and share cultural heritage in new and meaningful ways. By combining historical scholarship with contemporary artistic interpretation, "Strolling Through Korean Gardens" offers visitors a rare opportunity to understand Korean cultural philosophy through one of its most refined and enduring art forms.
