During the 48th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to be opened in Busan on July 19, Korea will have a special “K-Heritage House” at BEXCO, featuring a range of exhibitions and hands-on activities focusing on Korea’s World Heritage, the Korea Heritage Service said Monday. The service will also include a variety of side events throughout the Busan area to make the committee session a cultural event in which people from across the world can enjoy together.
The centrepiece of the event, the “K-Heritage House” at BEXCO (July 20-29), will host 35 institutions that will set up 45 exhibition and hands-on booths. The “Korea and UNESCO” theme hall and surrounding promotion space will broadly inform the public about the importance of Korea’s 17 World Heritage Sites and the sites on the list of tentative World Heritage sites, such as “Hwaseong Fortress,” “Namhansanseong”, and “Sansa, Buddhist Mountain Monasteries in Korea.”
Besides, the “K-Heritage Promotion Hall” will allow visitors to vividly experience the national and World Heritage visiting courses throughout the country inside the venue through media art and immersive experiential contents. The large media pole, 9m high, will bring the beauty of Korean heritage to life on a grand scale in the “Heritage: Timeless Time” immersive media art exhibition hall. The National Archives of Korea will showcase the excellence of Korea’s documentary culture and give a new life to the documentary culture’s cultural values by organising a special exhibition on the theme of Memory of the World heritage.
In addition to the exhibition and promotion spaces, like the Busan city government’s “Host City Busan Hall” to showcase the spirit and cultural characteristics of “Busan,” there will also be promotion and exhibition spaces for the spiritual and cultural heritage of “Yeongsanjae,” a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, which can be immediately seen by visitors.
In addition to these, spaces for food and entertainment will be established where guests can sample K-Seafood (Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries), K-Traditional Markets (Ministry of SMEs and Startups) and K-Food (Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs). A “K-Heritage Store” will also be in operation for a long time, allowing visitors to buy products fusing traditional culture with a sense of modernity.
This event will be held not only at BEXCO, but throughout the entire city of Busan. The “Busan Travel Film Festival: Capturing World Heritage in Cinema” (July 18-19) will take place in the Busan Cinema Centre, where one can experience World Heritage in films with the theme of “travel”. The branch of the Shinsegae Department Store-Centum City will also have the operating “Visiting Hanbok Shop Busan” (July 16-22), which will have eight hanbok companies take part in the “hanbok pop-up store,” and the traditional culture experience of accessory-making.
Furthermore, the welcome of the visitors will be accompanied by various cultural and artistic activities such as the special exhibition “Records and Culture of Joseon, Passed Down for Generations” (July 7-August 30, Busan Museum) which will be co-hosted by the National Palace Museum of Korea and the Busan Museum to celebrate the history of documentary culture through the UNESCO Memory of the World heritage and royal heritage in Korea.
There are also varied events and performances in which the very essence of Korean traditional culture is presented, which should be seen as well. The royal guards in charge of protecting Seoul’s Gyeonbokgung Palace will welcome the participants twice a day at BEXCO Exhibition Hall 1, while the “Royal Family’s Stroll” that repeats a royal procession of the Joseon Dynasty will also be held twice daily, as well, giving attractions to the participants from July 20 to 29.
Dignified presentations will be held at BEXCO in the areas of the comprehensive traditional arts performance “Let’s Go See GOOD Busan” (July 26, Auditorium), the convergence performance “Sanhwabi: Hexagram 22” (July 23-24, Auditorium) featuring a presentation of Korean intangible cultural assets in a modern form, the Miryang intangible cultural arts performance and a special Joseon Tongsinsa procession (July 26, Outdoor Plaza).
Other programs for domestic and international visitors, such as those who visited Korea in connection with the World Heritage Committee, will also be held permanently. The “2026 Refuge Capital Busan National Heritage Night Tour” organized by the Busan city government will be held for the general public on July 24-25, during which they will be able to see with the commentators the historic sites of “Heritage of the Refuge Capital Busan”—the list submitted by Busan city and a priority of the UNESCO World Heritage Designation Committee—and experience the beautiful night views and history of Busan together. In addition to this, events highlighting the excellence of Korea’s heritage will be conducted for participation from official participants, including representatives from overseas member states.
Various programs will be conducted, allowing visitors to experience Korea’s spiritual culture and history. These include “From Records to Heritage” (July 23-29, National Archives of Korea Busan Branch and Busan Museum), which offers a special opportunity to view the actual Annals of the Joseon Dynasty and to experience Joseon royal cosmetic culture through cosmetics modernly reinterpreted based on relics excavated from the tomb of Princess Hwahyeop, as well as the “Busan Suburban World Heritage Field Trip” (July 25) visiting Tongdosa Temple in Yangsan and the Bangudae Petroglyphs in Ulsan, a visit to the Gaya Tumuli World Heritage site and the Hoeamsa Temple Site in Yangju, and a temple food dinner and Seon (Zen) meditation experience hosted by the Jogye Order.
The exact programme of the side events and of participation in programmes can be verified on the official website of the 48th World Heritage Committee.
In the meantime, a plenary session of the 48th World Heritage Committee will be held from July 19 to 29 at the Busan Exhibition and Convention Centre (BEXCO). This will be the first-ever World Heritage Committee meeting in Korea. Approximately 3,000 people, including delegates and experts from 196 countries around the world that have ratified the convention, will be in attendance. Preliminary side events with World Heritage officials are scheduled to start on 13 July, before the opening of the plenary session.
