Experience Seoul Light DDP: A Magical Art Festival

Seoul Light DDP is back with its summer edition, “Timescape: Textures of Light.” For 11 days, this media art festival will feature multiple art exhibits lit under vivid lights to illuminate the hot summer nights of Seoul with bright colors and imagination.

Typically Seoul Light hosts a multimedia light exhibit that’s projected across the entire surface of the outer wall of the west side of the DDP. But this time there are seven different exhibits to enjoy that have been spread throughout the outer grounds of the DDP: Light Drops, Fluid Memory, Into the Waves of Light, Flux, Beam Trace, Rhythm in Fog and Rhythm in Droplets.

This year’s theme plays with time, memory, and emotion, using light and media art to reinterpret Seoul’s centuries-old Hanyang City Wall, Igansu Gate, and waterways. Imagine shimmering beams tracing ancient stones, interactive light-pattern art in misty courtyards, and glowing droplets on the lawn that gently pulse different colors. The entire DDP and park are designed as a walk-through lightscape that bridges past, present, and future.

The exhibition will be going from July 31 to August 10, every night between 8:00 and 10:00 PM at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza and surrounding History & Culture Park. Watch Seoul’s cityscape come alive with lights, fog, lasers, water, and interactive magic—and the best part? It’s completely free!

What is there to do at Seoul Light DDP?

Seoul Light DDP is an outdoor exhibition that starts with the western wall of the DDP with a light and sound show, Into the Waves of Light, that’s projected on the outer wall of the DDP. The show plays on a loop and is only a few minutes long, so feel free to watch it once or twice before crossing the bridge into the DDP’s courtyard where the rest of the exhibit is held.

There, you’ll find Flux, an LED lit light exhibit that looks like a cross between a jellyfish and an alien ship. On the opening night of the exhibit, they had a live DJ playing music here, but that’s since been replaced with ambient electronic sounds.

From here, you can move over to the water garden where they have Rhythm in Fog and Beam Trace. There are a small army of fog machines here which emit smoke to interact with the laser lights to produce some amazing looking designs.

Finally, you can move on to the grass lawn along the Seoul City Wall to see Light Drops and Fluid Memory. Fluid Memory has a light show set to music projected across the remains of old Seoul City’s wall while the LED illuminated sculptures that dot the lawn react in time to Fluid Memory.

Rhythm in Droplets can be found at the far end of the exit. Visitors can stand in front of a camera which reactions to movement and displays its interpretation of that movement on a wall. It’s… not the best part of the exhibit.

Where is Seoul Light DDP held?

Seoul Light DDP is held every year at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul. The easiest way to get there is via subway to the Dongdaemun History and Culture Park Station on line no. 2, 4, and 5. Once you get to the station, take exit #1 to enter the DDP from the basement floor.