Busan is good

Sea Art Festival 2025 Kicks Off Today for 37 Days

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Busan Metropolitan City (Mayor Park Heong-joon) and the Busan Biennale Organizing Committee (Executive Director Lee Jun) announced that the Sea Art Festival 2025 will be held for 37 days, from today (September 27) until November 2.

First launched in 1987, the Sea Art Festival is a rare and unique event worldwide, transforming the open space of the sea into an exhibition venue.

The theme of this year’s exhibition, “Undercurrents: Walking on the Waves,” reflects the exploration of relationships with unseen or marginalized beings and the ecological rhythms beneath the surface, reaffirming the meaning of coexistence and survival.

Returning to Dadaepo for the first time in six years, the Sea Art Festival 2025 will utilize not only Dadaepo Beach, Gouni Ecological Trail, and Molundae Coastal Walk, but also repurpose previously unused spaces such as the former Dadae Incineration Plant and the former Molun Coffee Shop.

• ●Dadaepo Beach will present dynamic landscapes formed at the boundary where river and sea meet, expressed through polyphonic languages that reveal new narratives.

• ●Gouni Ecological Trail will be arranged to encourage audiences to reflect on their relationship with nature and engage in artistic practices in daily life.

• ●Molundae Coastal Walk will offer contemplative experiences through works incorporating the traditional Dadaepo labor song “Huri Sori” and underwater soundscapes.

• ●The former Dadae Incineration Plant will be transformed into a space that allows audiences to experience its past, present, and future, delivering messages of awareness of the climate crisis and calls for collective solidarity.

• ●The former Molun Coffee Shop, once a popular rest area for citizens, will feature sensory artworks and be reshaped into a space for free interaction.

The exhibition is co-directed by Kim Geum-hwa and Bernard Vienat, featuring 46 works by 38 artists from 23 teams representing 17 countries.

The exhibition depicts the past, present, and future of Dadaepo, a site where resistance, traces, and recovery coexist, through diverse artistic languages, while proposing new approaches to solidarity and coexistence through participatory and community-based collaborations.

Major participating Korean artists include Kim Sang-don, Lee Jin, Cho Hyung-seop, Oh Mi-ja (team), and Jeewi Lee & Phillip C. Reiner (Korea & Germany). In addition, artist Choi Won-gyo of “Project Yuyeong,” the winning team of the 1st Emerging Artists Art Show in 2024, will also take part.

International participants include Plastique Fantastique, Raul Walch, Seba Calfuqueo, and Viron Erol Vert, among others.

In addition to the exhibition, a variety of programs will engage all five senses, including children’s workshops, artwork-related workshops, discussions and dialogues, and performances.

Interactive citizen participation programs such as snorkeling, carpet making, painting, and a seed-rolling contest will also be held. Performances by participating artists, including “Silver Boom” with local women over 60, as well as lectures by world-renowned scholars of the Anthropocene, will further enrich interdisciplinary exchange.

Admission to the exhibition is free. Participation programs will be held several times throughout the exhibition period, with some requiring advance registration.

For detailed information and schedules, please visit the official website of the Sea Art Festival at saf2025.org/ko. For additional inquiries, contact the Busan Biennale Organizing Committee at ☎051-503-6111.

Park Heong-joon, Mayor of Busan Metropolitan City and Chairman of the Busan Biennale Organizing Committee, stated, “Through this Sea Art Festival, we aim to highlight both the charm of Dadaepo and Busan’s stature as an international cultural city. We will continue to provide unwavering support so that the Sea Art Festival can establish itself as a world-class exhibition, representing Korea on the global stage.”