Seoul’s first public museum specializing in new media — and the first public art museum in the city’s southwest — opens Thursday.
The Seoul Museum of Art said it is opening its eighth branch, the Seoul Museum of Art Seo-Seoul Museum of Art (Seo-Seoul Museum of Art), on March 12.
The museum, in Doksan-dong, Geumcheon-gu, has a total floor area of 7,186 square meters (2,173 pyeong) and spans two basement levels and one above-ground floor. Planning began in 2015. The building was designed by architect Kim Chan-joong, whose work has received multiple domestic and international awards, including the Seoul Architecture Award grand prize, the Korea Institute of Registered Architects Award and the iF Design Red Dot Award.
To improve access, the museum was built as a low-rise structure and designed to minimize boundaries with nearby Geumnarae Central Park. With entry routes from multiple directions, the museum aims to make visits part of everyday life for residents.
The Seo-Seoul Museum of Art plans creative, experimental exhibitions and programs centered on new media, and it will continue education programs aimed at developing future arts talent. To help ensure visitors from the southwest’s diverse communities can enjoy culture without barriers, it has introduced multilingual guidance, plain-language explanations of collection works, and sign-language and text interpretation.
To mark the opening, the museum will present three exhibitions in sequence from March through July: the SeMA performance “Breath,” the construction archive show “Our Time Starts Here,” and the new media collection exhibition “Transparent Seo-Seoul | Youth | Machine.”
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said he is pleased that residents in the southwest can experience “world-class new media art” close to home, adding that he hopes the Seo-Seoul Museum of Art becomes a space loved for a long time in the daily lives of Seoul residents.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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