Sketches of DDP Design & Art
DDP & Seoul Put on the One and Only Costume of Light in the World.
Seoul Light DDP 2024 Autumn & DDP Design & Art Festival
DDP Design & Art Festival brings together design, art, media, and technology. Seoul Light DDP 2024 Autumn took place from August 29 to September 8 under the theme of “Future Log,” with various lights, colors, shapes, and sounds combined to create a fascinating media art façade to celebrate the 10th anniversary of DDP’s opening.

Moments Recorded to Connect the Past, Present, and Future
As an iconic building of Seoul, DDP has become a giant work of art in itself. Seoul Light DDP 2024 Autumn showed people how DDP could constantly evolve, going through transformation after transformation. Since its launch in 2019, the event has emerged as the No. 1 media art festival of Seoul presenting works of globally renowned artists on a media façade. The star of Seoul Light DDP 2024 was Kim Whan-ki, a master artist of Korea. In his media art work “Poetry of Time,” Kim reinterprets the eternity of time and puts his life and works in a new light on a 222m-wide façade set up on the exterior wall of DDP.
Depicting countless artists featured at DDP over the past decade in multiple chapters, INVITATION by VERSEDAY captures the hearts of foreign tourists shopping at the malls nearby as well as Seoul citizens passing by with fascinating lights and dynamically evolving video. The video production was directed by Park Je-seong whose TV media art presenting works of Kim Whan-ki was well-received at Frieze Seoul 2023. Yoon Sang, a pop artist who routinely transcends the boundaries of singing, producing, and songwriting, was in charge of music, adding to the quality of the media artwork.

Hands-on Installation Interacts with Viewers.
Aperture, a hands-on installation work by Atelier Sisu, was set up at Eight Junction. As a pavilion sculpture inspired by nature including rocks on a beach, Aperture is a new form of exhibition unknown to most people. Made up of module-type pieces meticulously designed to intersect with one another, it freely crosses the boundaries of an installation for fun, a make-shift structure, and a work of art on display, allowing people to explore the installation work through the perforated walls. Characterized by geometric curves and surfaces, arrangement of framed holes, and constantly changing lights and sounds, this work allowed the viewers to interact with a work of art as they navigate through the labyrinth-like installation and experience the thrill of discovering a new form of art.
Lights Cover the Grass Whenever the Heart Spins Around.
The green Grass Hill turns into a ballroom when “Our Beating Heart” by UK-based studio Vertigo unfolds on the hill. Highlighting the heart as the core of a human being and light as the origin of life, this work is designed to light up people and everything else around as light reaches the heart-shaped sculpture, gets absorbed, and then becomes reflected on the outside world. The mechanism of a mirror ball is displayed in a giant scale in this work of art. Whenever the heart spins around, the buildings and streets are covered in gorgeous lights. Viewers are amazed at the lights that constantly change, taking photos and videos. As the name Our Beating Heart suggests, the work has the magical power of a beating heart to draw viewers to it and bring them together.
Optical Illusion and Dolphins Add a Special Rhythm to Design Pathway.
The magic of colors and shapes unfolded on DDP Museum’s Design Pathway, a spiral-shaped passage that connects spaces. Felice Varini, a world-renowned artist known for transforming everyday life spaces into artworks, participated in “Colors, Shapes, and Movements,” the first special exhibition on Design Pathway. Design Pathway was transformed completely into a new space with colors and shapes that constantly changed as viewers moved. Green dolphins were flying in the sky at Design Pathway Gallery. Environmental activist and Korea's first green designer Yoon Ho-seop installed 100 dolphins known as Jeju Indo-Pacific Bottlenose Dolphin along the 170m-long corridor, bringing life and environment to people’s attention and offering refreshing fun to viewers walking on the path.

Exhibitions, Talk, and Tour – An Amazing Future Shaped by DDP
The exhibition held at Gallery Mun explores the unlimited possibilities that the convergence of humans and AI will create in the era of blurred boundaries between AI and humans. Various brainwave data are analyzed and transformed into sounds, media, and kinetic art. The DDP Art Talk & Tour offering a talk or a docent’s guide on five special exhibitions of DDP Design & Art was also popular among visitors.
The increased public interest in art and potential of DDP as a design & art platform were evident in all different spaces including Design Hall, Seoul-On Video Studio, Design Pathway Lounge, and Designers Lounge. People were constantly drawn to DDP during the festival by its uniqueness, which gives a fresh look into mundane everyday life and expectations of changes to trigger new waves. The festival certainly lived up to the scale expected of the 10th anniversary but was all the more special in the sense that it provided people with an opportunity to experience and get up-close and personal with art, something that ordinary people cannot personally relate to through the medium of DDP.
Text | Lim Ji-young
Photos | Kim Jae-hyeong