"Pixel & Paint (PIXEL&PAINT)," a special event of Seoul Forum 2026, has chosen "The Power of K" as its theme, focusing the event on the global spread of K-culture while presenting collaboration between art and technology and new possibilities for art. Held on the 28th of this month at the Emerald Hall of Shilla Hotel's State Guest House in Seoul, Pixel & Paint aims to diagnose the current situation in which K-culture's driving force combines with contemporary sensibility and technological capability to create new creations and effects, at a time when K-culture has become not a passing trend but a global cultural phenomenon, and to present industrial expansion and a new vision. It is also an occasion to declare that Korea has leaped beyond being a "star-manufacturing country" that merely makes content to be consumed, to become an "insight-exporting country" that leads global discourse and presents new aesthetic standards.
Yu Hong-june, Director of the National Museum of Korea, will deliver the keynote address under the theme "The Roots and Power of Korean Culture," opening the event. While international forums typically feature invited overseas figures as keynote speakers, given that the theme is K-culture, Yu—a humanities scholar and top expert on cultural heritage—will reexamine the pride of Korean culture. Under the theme of how Korean cultural identity was formed, he will explore how the humanistic environment of modern Korean society draws strength from its roots within the flow of Korean history and culture.
The power of Korean tradition symbolized by "K" permeates throughout popular culture. BTS's comeback performance at Gwanghwamun Square, where they first unveiled their new song "Arirang," resembled a "gut" (shamanic ritual), and Netflix's animation "K-Pop Demon Hunters" features evil spirits and exorcism as its subject matter. Lee Geon-wook, head of the Exhibition Operations Division at the National Folk Museum of Korea, who earned master's and doctoral degrees in ethnology from Moscow State University and currently serves as president of the Seoul Folklore Society, will open the first session with the theme "The Heart of K-Culture, Shamanism: Excitement and Comfort from an Ancient Future." Gut rituals combine various artistic elements including costume, music, dance, and narrative, which have become an important foundation forming the complex identity of Korean culture. This presentation examines how folklore and shamanism are utilized in K-culture and explores the direction K-culture should take by choosing shamanism as cultural content.
Following this, Kim Mi-kyung, head of the Product Business Division at the National Museum Foundation of Korea, will lecture on the competitiveness of "MU:DS," which was planned based on cultural heritage from national museums and has gained tremendous popularity both at home and abroad. The secret to success began with viewing museum products not as mere souvenirs but as "mediators" that translate the value and stories of artifacts into today's language. Kim will propose new cultural possibilities that museums can create, tracing the process through which cultural heritage expands from an object of "appreciation" to a realm of "taste."
Also taking the podium is artist Keum Ki-sook, who set a new record in the history of Korean museum and art gallery exhibitions by drawing 1.13 million visitors to a single exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Craft Art's special exhibition, which closed in March. Having learned the beauty of hanbok early on through art historical research into traditional paintings such as Shin Yun-bok's genre painting albums, Keum identified the essence of that aesthetic as "swaying and trembling" and developed this into an original art form using wire and fabric scraps as materials.
For the second session, "The Mechanism of Fascination, the Aesthetics of Convergence," Park Seung-ho, chairman of the Park Seo-bo Foundation which honors the master of "Dansaekhwa" Park Seo-bo (1931-2023), will present cases of cultural heritage succession, spiritual expansion, and genre-transcending extension. If Park Seo-bo's solo exhibition at the White Cube Gallery in Paris, running until the end of this month, represents the succession of "K-art," the Park Seo-bo Foundation is continuing educator Park Seo-bo's spirit through exhibitions that discover and support emerging artists, while also serving as a pioneer of artistic expansion through genre-transcending collaborations with Louis Vuitton, LG Electronics, and others.
For an artist talk, Yee Soo-kyung, Korea's flagship contemporary artist who has been invited to the main exhibition of the 2017 Venice Biennale, the 2024 Abu Dhabi Public Art Biennale, and the 2025 Taipei Biennale, and whose works are held by the UK's National Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States, will meet with the audience. Her "Translated Vase" series, which joins shattered ceramic fragments to create new forms of beauty, embodies connection and convergence, while "Moon Crown," inspired by Silla artifacts, encompasses the international character and cultural diversity of ancient Korean states and itself symbolizes K-culture.
A panel discussion featuring Park Joo-won, CEO of Simone Fashion Company, who will discuss Korean craft as the competitive edge of K-luxury, is also drawing anticipation. Choi Jung-yoon, chair of Nanrohoe, who leads the globalization of Korean cuisine, will lecture on "Korean Cuisine and the Gastronomy Economy," about how the uniqueness of K-food culture becomes a future industry.
Michelle Sugihara, executive director of CAPE, the largest non-profit organization supporting Asian entertainment activities in Hollywood, and Ma Dong-hoon, professor of media at Korea University, will conclude the forum. Professor Ma has discovered a productive space for hybrid identity in K-storytelling, which speaks with a universal voice, and will discuss the future of transcendent expandability with Sugihara.
