Korea Events Calendar
Korea events calendar lists festivals, exhibitions, seasonal highlights and traditional customs month by month, with ticketing dates, hours and map links. Don’t miss all of the amazing things you can do in Korea.
New this month
Ipdong (입동) – Start of Winter
Full guide
The 24 Korean Seasons: A Guide To the Jeolgi Calendar
Starting around November 7, Ipdong means ‘onset of Winter’, and represents the beginning of the coldest and harshest period of the year. At this time, families start to prepare for kimjang, or the making of kimchi which will last through the winter months.
Kimjang traditionally took place within the five days before or after the beginning of Ipdong, as this was thought to be the time when it would become most delicious. If you want to partake in the annual kimjang festivities, be sure to note this date down. That said, because of global warming, the dates for kimjang seem to be getting pushed back a little by little each year.
Soseol (소설) – Little Snow
Full guide
The 24 Korean Seasons: A Guide To the Jeolgi Calendar
Starting around November 22, the weather turns cold enough for snow to fall. Although the farming season has passed, there are still tasks to complete before winter sets in: tie and hang dried radish greens, slice and dry radish greens or pumpkins, and pick and care for cotton. Additionally, rice straw is collected to use as cattle feed throughout the winter.
Traditionally, this was not a seasonal holiday but a day that signaled the beginning of winter preparations.
Still going on / more dates
‘3rd Poem: Es Devlin, Come Home Again’
📍 Futura Seoul, 61, Bukchon-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul · 서울 종로구 북촌로 61 (가회동) 푸투라 서울
Across performance, visual art, architecture, literature and technology, Es Devlin’s first solo exhibition in Korea oversees 30 years of the English artist’s practice. A strong believer in a ‘temporary society’ built by transient audiences, Devlin places emphasis on the moment when individual perception expands into a collective experience. The exhibition’s large-scale installation invites visitors to engage in acts of participatory drawing, literature and audio. The artist harnesses multitudes of mirrors to refract natural and artificial light, illuminating the possibility of new encounters in the presence of others.
Busan Biennale (부산비엔날레)
📍 Busan · 부산
Korea's oldest contemporary biennial, founded 1981 as the Busan Youth Biennale, consolidated in 1998 (as PICAF, renamed Busan Biennale from 2002) from three antecedent events, and the institution that has carried the port-city argument across forty years of Korean contemporary art.
DDP Rooftop Tour 2026
📍 281 Eulji-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul · 서울특별시 중구 을지로 281 (을지로7가)
Full guide
Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) Seoul: What To See, Do, and Know Before You Visit
Walk along the 652-meter DDP rooftop and enjoy a 360-degree panoramic view of Dongdaemun and the Seoul skyline.
This is an urban attraction tour program offering a unique way to experience the city from above.
Admission Fee Standard KRW 26,000 / Special KRW 50,000
Operating Hours
· 1st Session: 11:00 (English)
· 2nd Session: 13:00 (Korean) Friday–Sunday
· 3rd Session: 16:00 (Korean)
※ Operating Schedule Subject to Change.
※ Please check the detailed booking system for details.
Program Description A guided walking tour across DDP’s fully connected 652m rooftop, offering a 360° panoramic view of the Dongdaemun skyline.
Capacity · 15 participants per Standard Tour
※ Only adults aged 18 to 70 are eligible to participate.
※ A valid ID is required.
Duration · 60 minutes
※ Includes time for changing into the experience outfit, safety briefing, and event participation.
※ Please arrive at least 20 minutes before the tour starts for a safety briefing and tour preparation.
Notice · Photography and filming will take place for promotional purposes. Participation implies consent to photo/video usage.
※ Tours may be canceled due to weather conditions (rain, strong winds, extreme heat or fine dust).
※ Participation is restricted for those with acrophobia or health conditions.
※ For safety reasons, participants must: Weigh between 40–100 kg, Be 140 cm–200 cm tall, Be aged 18–70 years.
Do Ho Suh
📍 MMCA Seoul, 30 Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul · 서울 종로구 삼청로 30 국립현대미술관 서울
Korean-born Do Ho Suh returns to his birth city in MMCA Seoul’s major retrospective, exploring concepts of identity, memory and the enigma of belonging. The exhibition features key early works, notable projects and the debut of new pieces. Large-scale installations remain the cornerstone of Suh’s artistic prowess and take precedence in the exhibition. Through his notable use of polyester fabric and stainless steel, Suh constructs neon translucent structures – doorways, rooftops, rooms and connecting hallways that actively interrogate the meaning of inhabiting a space.
Gwangju Biennale (광주비엔날레)
📍 111 Biennale-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju · 전남광주 북구 비엔날레로 111 광주비엔날레전시관
Full guide
A Guide to Gwangju’s Art Scene: Museums, Studios & Public Art Beyond the Biennale
≪You Must Change Your Life≫
Inspired by the final line of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem Archaic Torso of Apollo, the 16th Gwangju Biennale explores how new capacities and forms of life emerge through artistic practice.
In Rilke’s 1908 poem, a fragment of an ancient sculpture releases within its viewer an overwhelming surge of emotional energy, culminating in the injunction: “You must change your life.” Yet the poem offers no prescription. Transformation remains open—urgent, but not yet determined. Taking inspiration from this imperative, the Biennale approaches change not as a destination but as a method: a process through which matter, bodies, perceptions, and relations are continually reorganised.
Change is often most immediately visible to us in moments of rupture and crisis. Yet change also unfolds quietly and unnoticed, like the changes in faces of the loved ones we see daily. And change also unfolds through the accumulation of our everyday acts and rituals as they accumulate to practices of repetition that brings about difference and. It is through such practices that we expand our capacity to affect—and to be affected.
A central proposition of this Biennale is that change is sustained through practice. But in order to be generative, any practice must be sustainable enough to repeat across multiple scales of life. Repetition is what shapes how we perceive, how we relate, and how we live. As such living models of persistence and experimentation, artistic practices appear here as cumulative techniques through which individuals and communities embody their experiences of transformation.
Gyeonggi Ceramics Biennale (경기도자비엔날레)
📍 263 Gyeongchung-daero 2697beon-gil, Icheon-si, Gyeonggi-do · 경기도 이천시 경충대로2697번길 263 (관고동)
The Gyeonggi Ceramics Biennale features a range of exhibitions and educational events. The event takes place at various locations in Korea famous for ceramics, including Icheon, Yeoju, and Gwangju.
Locations include:
- Gyeonggi Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art (Icheon)
263, Gyeongchung-daero 2697beon-gil, Icheon-si, Gyeonggi-do
- Gyeonggi Ceramic Museum (Gwangju)
727, Gyeongchung-daero, Gonjiam-eup, Gwangju-si, Gyeonggi-do
- Gyeonggi Museum of Ceramic Design (Yeoju)
7, Silleuksa-gil, Yeoju-si, Gyeonggi-do
Hongseong Namdang Port Shrimp Festival (홍성남당항 대하축제)
📍 Namdang-ri, Seobu-myeon, Hongseong-gun, Chungnam · 충남 홍성군 서부면 남당리
The 31st Hongseong Namdang Port Prawn Festival is Hongseong's representative autumn food festival where visitors can enjoy the pristine waters of Cheonsuman Bay and fresh, seasonal prawns.
Jeju Biennale
📍 1100-ro, Jeju-si, Jeju-do · 제주특별자치도 제주시 1100로 2894-78
The 5th Jeju Biennale 2026 attends to the processes through which Jeju's indigenous culture, in its encounter with northern civilizations, has mixed, gathered, and metamorphosed into Iyahong. Taking Iyahong (the refrain of a Jeju folk song) as its central concept, the Biennale embodies the metamorphic process of flowing, mingling, and being reborn. Through Jeju as an island of metamorphosis, it presents the modes of survival and aesthetics cultivated in the coexistence and symbiosis of things and nature, humans and deities.
As crossroads and platform where southern maritime and northern continental cultures intersect, Jeju has formed a distinctively syncretic culture. The island has functioned not as a site of isolation, but as a cultural threshold of ceaseless connection and metamorphosis. Where the 4th Jeju Biennale illuminated Jeju at the heart of maritime civilizational history through the keyword Drift, the 5th Biennale examines Jeju as a site of convergence with northern civilizations — formed at the crossing of history (politics), nature (geology), and polytheistic culture (faith and belief) — through three keywords: Exile, Stone Culture, and Mythology.
Locations include:
- Jeju Museum of Art
2894-78, 1100-ro, Jeju-si, Jeju-do, Republic of Korea
- Jeju Stone Park
2023, Namjo-ro, Jocheon-eup, Jeju-si, Jeju-do, Republic of Korea
- Jeju Arts Platform
18, Jungang-ro 14-gil, Jeju-si, Jeju-do, Republic of Korea
- Art Space IAa
21, Jungang-ro 14-gil, Jeju-si, Jeju-do, Republic of Korea
- Gallery Remicon
31, Sanji-ro, Jeju-si, Jeju-do, Republic of Korea
Lee Bae: ‘En attendant’
📍 Museum SAN, 260 Oak Valley 2-gil, Jijeong-myeon, Wonju-si, Gangwon-do · 강원 원주시 지정면 오크밸리2길 260 뮤지엄산
For those seeking an immersive cultural experience beyond Seoul, Museum SAN in the Wonju mountains, presents Lee Bae’s solo exhibition 'En attendant'. Drawing on the museum’s dedication to nature, art and space, the artist’s new show meditates on the act of waiting and healing. Charcoal, and its fire-induced metamorphosis from wood, becomes a central point in the exhibition. Throughout the grand scale of the museum’s interior and outdoor spaces, sculptural architecture, video installations and Bae’s signature painterly works comprise a full spectrum of artistic creation in sweeping constructions of black, white and earth tones.
Lee Kang So: ‘Emergence and Dissolution’
📍 LOTTE Museum of Art, 7th floor Lotte World Tower, 300 Olympic-ro, Songpa-gu, Seoul · 서울 송파구 올림픽로 300 롯데월드타워 7층 롯데뮤지엄
Lee Kang So, one of Korea’s most significant contemporary artists, exercises an artistic language guided by philosophical experimentation and reinforced by fluidity across media, including painting, sculpture, photography, video and performance. In 'Emergence and Dissolution', So explores the concept of unfolding, pressing the viewer to question their idea of completion and refocus on the significance of an unfinished process as they interpret new meanings from decades of the artist’s notable and experimental works.
Seoul Outdoor Library
📍 📍 Seoul Plaza (Seoul Plaza) | Gwanghwamun Book Plaza (Gwanghwamun Plaza) | Malgeunnaetga (Reading) (Mojeongyo–Gwangtongyo)
It's the perfect season for reading, so let's meet at the Seoul Outdoor Library this autumn! 🍂
📅 Sep. 4, 2026 (Fri) – Nov. 1, 2026 (Sun) Every Fri, Sat, Sun
⏰ (Night) 16:00–22:00 | (Day) 11:00–18:00
※ Operating schedule is subject to change depending on plaza usage schedules, etc.
Sol LeWitt: ‘Open Structure’
📍 Amorepacific Museum of Art · 서울 용산구 한강대로 100 아모레퍼시픽미술관
The Amorepacific Museum of Art presents Sol LeWitt’s posthumous 'Open Structure', the artist’s first large-scale exhibition in Korea. Spanning the entirety of the artist’s career, 'Open Structure' champions LeWitt’s belief that artistic work reaches new ambitions within the structure of an exhibition space. From his early works spotlighting black-and-white structures to his expansion into colour and the investigation of archival materials, the exhibition invites viewers to enter conversation with LeWitt’s principles of authorship, instruction and sequence.
Sungnyemun Guard Ceremony (숭례문 파수의식)
📍 40 Sejong-daero, Jung District, Seoul · 서울 중구 세종대로 40
Opening ceremony:
Period All year round (Except Monday)
Time 10:00~10:10
Venue Sungnyemun Gate
Details Opening ceremony of Sungnyemun Gate by guards
Guard Ceremony:
Period All year round (Except Monday)
Time 10:00~15:30 (※13:00~14:00 break)
Venue Sungnyemun Gate
Details Ceremony to guard Sungnyemun Gate
Closing Ceremony:
Period All year round (Except Monday)
Time 15:30 ~ 15:40
Venue Sungnyemun Gate
Details Closing ceremony of Sungnyemun Gate by guards