The Gimpo Sculpture Park: A Fun Thing To Do Near Seoul
Always on the lookout for nature and artistic spots, seeing anything on that map that possibly melds the two becomes a must-see for me. After visiting the beautiful Anyang Art Park down south, I began searching for other art parks around Seoul and Korea to see what else there was to find and the nearby Gimpo Sculpture Park (๊นํฌ์กฐ๊ฐ๊ณต์) came onto my radar.
I haven’t spent a lot of time in Gimpo and generally just pass through as I’m headed to the Gimpo Airport bound or other spots but there are some great things to do in Gimpo and it’s an easy area to get to if you’re still looking to ride the Seoul subway system.
Skip around and see what you need to see to plan your trip to the Gimpo Sculpture Park:
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How To Get There
Address: 38 Yonggang-ro 13beon-gil, Wolgot-myeon, Gimpo-si, Gyeonggi-do (๊ฒฝ๊ธฐ๋ ๊นํฌ์ ์๊ณถ๋ฉด ์ฉ๊ฐ๋ก13๋ฒ๊ธธ 38)
By Public Transportation: From Daehwa Subway Station on the orange line, go out of 4, 5, or 6 and do a U-turn to find the bus stop and take bus 97. You’ll ride for about 50 minutes and get dropped off at the Gimpo Sculpture Park stop, stop #35016.
Basic Information
Admission: Free (Parking is W1,000)
Amenities: parking, restrooms, cafe, playground
Hours: Sunrise to Sunset
What To Know About The Gimpo Sculpture Park
The Gimpo Sculpture Park, created in 1998, sits on the foothills of Munsu Mountainย and was originally established as a unique unification theme park. The 30 artworks from 16 artists are meant to express the pain of Korea’s division as well as the hope for unity.
This is a common theme that you can find around Korea especially as you head north in South Korea. Visit Camp Greaves in the DMZ area or Imjingak and you’ll also find a lot of artistic installations devoted to the idea of unification.
The artworks here blend seamlessly with the natural surroundings and really makes for a fun day out in a forest. The park is free and also features a cafe, zipline, and playground area for smaller children so this is absolutely a great thing to do with kids in Seoul.
Head into the forest and you’ll be greeted with the first three sculptures and then come upon a cafe. The second sculpture, seen above, is named ‘Works 2001, Within the Nature’ by Woo Jaegil. The mirrored exterior reflects the trees and the colorful interior is meant to represent our dreams and hopes. The pieces spin individually, so play around with them when you visit.
Some of the stand outs for us included the ‘Bisected 2-way Mirror Triangle’ by Dan Graham that was added in 2001. The stainless steel and window panes both reflect and allow you to look through at the same time. The ‘Schattenfiguren’ by Stephan Balkenhol that was also added in 2001 would be creepy at any other time of day, but in the middle of the day, the hanging people above the path were rather whimsical. The piece seeks to suggest that we must reach further than ourselves, higher than we know we can go. They’re definitely higher than I can go… or are they?
This park is definitely a unique thing to do in Gimpo and I’m glad we could go. All in all, the path probably took about an hour or a bit over to walk with our little one going this way and that. We could have spent more time at each piece, but she was on a hunt to find them all and that we did.
It’s not a difficult walk, I wore a dress and sandals, but I would say sneakers would have been just a bit more comfortable but it was definitely doable in what I wore. Get out and about and enjoy the views. This spot is quite off the beaten path. There were probably 4 other families/couples in the area but we were all spread out and never clumped on the path anywhere.
The cafe that you see is at the beginning and end as the path loops around so don’t feel like you need to get a drink at the beginning. We got strawberry smoothies after walking through and it was a perfect ending.
Unlike Anyang Art Park, the sculptures are all along one easy path to follow that begins and ends in the same location. Visitors traipse up and down a forested hillside to take them all in. If you’re not an avid hiker or have kids in tow and want to get out into nature, but aren’t super keen on getting lost or really hiking, this is a great spot to check out.
Other Spots To Find
People often ask me how I manage to find so many off the beaten path spots and all I can say is, I follow my instincts. I was looking at the trusty Kakao Map for directions to a spot out on Ganghwa Island, also a must visit, and noticed this very tiny speck and zoomed in.
FYI, this art park is a ton of fun, but there are also parks in Seoul and around Korea that have various art installations as well. My favorite park for art installation viewing IN Seoul is the World Cup Park’s Pyeonghwa Park or Peace Park. There are art installations there from a flower expo some years ago and they provide some great photo ops as well.
If you like going out of the city though, there is also the cool Hamchang Art Road to check out as well as the Yeonmisan Art Park in Gongju, Korea, or head to Jecheon to see the Youngwol Y Park and the amazing red bamboo installation that leads you in to so much more.
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2 Comments
Jae
I tried to go on August 4, 2021. The Gimpo Sculpture Park was closed. The security guard at the gate told me that they have been closed for a while because of the pandemic, despite the fact that there is no indication on Naver or on their website at a glance.
Hallie Bradley
Thanks for the update Jae. Sorry you made the trip out there and it was closed. It’s too bad so many sites aren’t keeping up with notifications online either.