August 29, 2026 – November 30, 2026

The third Seoul Sculpture Festival puts contemporary sculpture outdoors across the city, free and open to anyone. The festival week — opening ceremony, sculpture playground, busking and an outdoor cinema — runs August 29 to September 4, 2026 at Yeolin Songhyeon Green Plaza, and the outdoor exhibitions stay up at five sites across Seoul until November 30.

For one week at the end of August, Seoul hands two of its most open pieces of ground over to sculpture. The third Seoul Sculpture Festival runs across Yeolin Songhyeon Green Plaza — the wide, deliberately empty lot beside Gyeongbokgung Palace — and Ttukseom Hangang Park on the river, with works standing in the open air rather than behind museum glass.

The programme is built around three strands: finalist works from the Seoul Sculpture Award, a “sculpture village” section, and pieces brought in by the festival’s art directors. Around them run street performances and hands-on programmes, so the plazas stay busy rather than hushed.

It is one of the easiest art events in the city for a visitor to walk into. Everything is outdoors and unticketed, the Songhyeon site is a five-minute walk from Anguk Station and Bukchon, and the Ttukseom site pairs naturally with a river evening. Some of the related sculpture exhibitions around the city run into November, so the pieces do not vanish when the festival week ends.

When: August 29 (Sat) – September 4 (Fri), 2026
Where: Yeolin Songhyeon Green Plaza, Ttukseom Hangang Park
Official site: artinseoul.kr