8 October 2021 - 17 December 2023
MMCA Gwacheon
The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA, Director Youn Bummo) hosts
Circular Garden Project: Leisurely and Lively Conversation, a program specially designed for MMCA
Gwacheon that runs from 8 October 2021 through 17 December 2023.
Circular Garden Project is a garden art program installed in the Circular Garden, a space that reflects MMCA
Gwacheon’s geographical and environmental characteristics as a museum within nature. Surrounded by
Cheonggyesan Mountain and Gwanaksan Mountain, the project aims to introduce the garden as a genuine art
form that corresponds with nature. The Circular Garden is a special space located on the second floors of
MMCA Gwacheon’s outdoor area that allows visitors to view the sky through its round, open-air ceiling.
Garden designer Hwang Jihae presents the project, Leisurely and Lively Conversation, in MMCA
Gwacheon’s Circular Garden. Vegetation from the fields and mountains around the museum have been brought
into the Circular Garden and used as the work’s primary media. Beyond the garden, the ridges of Gwanaksan
Mountain and Cheonggyesan Mountain frame the Circular Garden and serve as a border between the garden
and the sky. By moving ecological life forms from outside MMCA Gwacheon into the garden, Hwang proposes
coexistence and symbiosis with one’s natural environment and addresses topics such as the preservation of
species and the value of unique genetic resources.
The artist hopes that the project will provide visitors with a chance to experience the infinite temporality of
nature, which flows slowly, repeats endlessly, and produces moments that can change at any instant, and lend
an ear to nature’s leisurely and lively conversation. Circular Garden Project will highlight all four seasons in
Gwacheon over the course of around two years, demonstrating the cyclic process of nature as it moves with
the flow of time.
Youn Bummo, director of the MMCA, notes, “The space, which has not been properly utilized since the
opening of MMCA Gwacheon, will finally be able to find vitality,” expressing his hopes that “the Circular
Garden, which represents the cycle of ecology over the four seasons, can become a characteristic space that
simultaneously offers art, nature, and rest to visitors who are fatigued from the prolonged pandemic.”
□ For general inquiries, please call +82-2-2188-6000 (MMCA Gwacheon)
