National Folk Museum to Relocate to Sejong by 2031... "Providing Global Folk Content Beyond Korea" (Comprehensive)

National Folk Museum to Open World Folk Culture Hall in 2026
"Country-based Exhibitions Are a Thing of the Past"
"Folk Content Will Focus on Universal Human Empathy"
"With Competitive Content, Visitors Will Come Even After Moving to Sejong"

“How moved would a foreign girl who came to Korea because she likes BTS be when she sees her own country's culture exhibited at the National Folk Museum?”

At a press conference held on the 8th at the National Folk Museum in Jongno, Seoul, Director Jang Sang-hoon said this and added, “We aim to cover not only Korean folk culture but also world folk culture,” and “We plan to unveil the World Folk Culture Hall in the second half of 2026, seeking to understand the universality and particularity of human culture.”

National Folk Museum of Korea Paju Storage Facility. National Folk Museum of Korea

Director Jang Sang-hoon stated, “In the 2008 Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism organizational explanation, the scope of the National Folk Museum’s duties expanded from ‘the unique lifestyle of ethnic groups’ to ‘the lifestyles, customs, and practices of countries around the world,’ but this has not been realized for nearly 20 years,” and emphasized, “Among major national museums worldwide, few do not cover world folk culture. Folk museums should address ‘human life’ from a universal human perspective.”

Korean Culture Box (Anbang Box). National Folk Museum

Currently, the National Folk Museum holds 15,860 items collected from over 150 countries. Although this is far less than the holdings of major Western museums such as those in France and the UK, the National Folk Museum plans to continue collecting by utilizing its exhibition network established with countries worldwide and to create a unique perspective through its curatorial capabilities. Kim Yoon-jung, a curator in the Folk Planning Department, explained, “Curatorial capability is very important in exhibitions. In fact, simply bringing in overseas exhibitions as they are is the easiest method if you have the money,” and added, “The National Folk Museum has created unique exhibitions through the curators’ perspectives. It is rare worldwide to have planned over 20 exhibitions directly rather than hosting external exhibitions.”

There are cases where museums from the countries of the overseas materials held by the National Folk Museum visit in reverse to examine them. A representative example is the 170,000 photographic materials donated by artist Kim Soo-nam (1949?2006). According to the National Folk Museum, officials from a Japanese history museum visited Korea to verify the folk beliefs of Okinawa depicted in Kim Soo-nam’s photographs. Director Jang Sang-hoon said, “When you visit world-famous museums, exhibits are often organized by country or continent, which reflects a modernist perspective based on nation and state,” and added, “The National Folk Museum focuses on universal human emotions and aims to foster mutual understanding through curation.”

Aerial view of the National Folk Museum of Korea in Sejong. National Folk Museum of Korea

The National Folk Museum plans to debut the World Folk Culture Hall in the second half of next year and continue to enhance it until its expansion and relocation to Sejong in 2031. The relocation to Sejong is scheduled to begin construction in 2027 and will be built with a total floor area of 22,473㎡ by 2031. Although the museum, currently located near Gyeongbokgung Palace, attracted over 1.4 million visitors last year due to its geographic advantage, a decline in visitors is expected after the move to Sejong. In response, Director Jang Sang-hoon said, “We will not simply bring the current content as is when we move to Sejong,” and added, “We plan to present world cultural content that has never been seen in the metropolitan area in an attractive way. If the content is good, people will come no matter where it is. Museums should move away from the Seoul-centric system to a bipolar or multipolar system.”

In line with this direction, on Children’s Day this year (May 4?5), 13 institutions including foreign embassies and cultural centers in Korea will participate to showcase folk games from various countries. This aims to create a space where world folk cultures come together rather than unilaterally introducing Korean culture. In the long term, an overseas version of the ‘Korean Culture Box,’ which consolidates Korean cultural content (physical objects, experiences, learning, audiovisual materials), will be produced. Starting with the Czech Culture Box next year, it will gradually expand to multiple countries. Additionally, the ‘Hallyu Culture Dictionary’ to promote Korea worldwide will be sequentially translated and serviced annually in English, Chinese, and Spanish starting this year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.