When I arrived in Seoul, I didn’t want to just see the monuments or skyscrapers. I wanted to get a feel for how history and everyday life interact here, and how art and urban spaces tell stories about people and places.

From afar, South Korea is often cast as a cultural utopia: sleek K-pop idols, glossy dramas, beauty regimens marketed as near-mystical, all part of a carefully curated image that the world has learned to pine for. Before visiting, I too had absorbed this version of Korea, polished and export-ready, wondering if the reality could ever live up to it.

On my first full day in Korea in April last year, while walking through the flower laden paths of Insadong with my younger sister, I met Julie quite by chance. As I wandered the streets of Seoul, I carried with me the curiosity and tools of a life spent at the intersection of writing, research, and consulting. I run a firm to support talent development and creative leadership and have spent years thinking about how stories – of individuals, communities, and cultures – shape our understanding of the world. As we got to speaking, Julie invited me into a space she had built from scratch to be able to host the KOTE Art Festival which she also runs. 

The Haebong Building site in Seoul has been a hub of cultural exchange for over a century. It was originally home to Yeonheungsa, one of Korea’s first private theatres, founded in 1907, and later hosted the Joseon Theater in 1922, where the inaugural performance of the legendary Towolhoe Theater Group took place. For generations, this space has served as a junction between old and new cultures, welcoming creative expression in all its forms.

Julie welcomed me inside with oatmilk coffee and offered me a desk to work at. The art she showed me was not about glimmering perfection; it was raw, questioning, and at times defiant. Julie’s  space felt like one where ideas, politics, and art converge. It is no secret that Korea’s women face rampant misogyny. Julie recounted how she had resolved to set up her art festival regardless. I realised how limited the global narrative on Korea had been, and how much of the country’s creative energy thrived outside the spotlight.When the veneer of hype falls away, what’s left is far more human and far more enduring.

Julie, whom I began calling eonnie – the Korean word for elder sister to a woman – told me that our meeting was umyeong, or fate. I believe in fate too, and in the way the universe nudges certain people into our lives.

This year, Julie invited me on behalf of the KOTE Art Festival to lead a series of workshops on cross-cultural literary and artistic exchange from September 5 to 7, with workspace and accommodation generously provided. The experience placed me at the intersection of history, creativity, and dialogue and gave me an opportunity to understand why Julie felt it was necessary to open South Korea up to the necessity of diverse viewpoints. 

The festival brought together film, performance, music, and conversations that often surprised me. I spent time talking with artists, activists, and thinkers from many different backgrounds. Being part of it made me realise that observing and taking part are never truly separate. Over the course of the festival, I moved through study groups on foreign policy, listened to traditional musicians, met experimental artists, and joined late-night gatherings. These spaces evolved from venues into crucibles for ideas, where personal experience and politics overlap, often in unexpected ways. 

In India, Korea is often consumed only at the surface: K-pop chart-toppers, glossy dramas, a skincare routine turned into global aspiration. What is denied, or simply overlooked, is its depth, the history and  the experimental energies that refuse easy categorisation. The festival made visible a Korea that resists simplification, one where art is inseparable from politics and where community itself becomes an act of creation.

Once it ended, I travelled to Yeosu to give a lecture at the Egg Gallery in Doseong Village. Yeosu is about 300 kilometres south of Seoul. By high-speed KTX train, the journey takes roughly three to three-and-a-half hours, while by car or bus it’s closer to five hours depending on traffic. I took a bus to Jinju from Seoul, and from Jinju, drove one hour and 40 minutes to Yeosu.

Founded in 2021 on the site of a former telephone exchange in a Hansen’s disease settlement near Yeosu airport, Egg Gallery is a space that preserves memory. The site transforms a place once associated with marginalisation into one of dialogue, experimentation, and cultural engagement, making every exhibition also an act of remembrance and reclamation.

The name “egg” evokes life, renewal, and beginnings, while also recalling the poultry farms once tended by patients of Hansen’s disease, to survive. 'Doseong Aesthetics' is the name for the new theory of art that is born from the lived history of the Doseong village. It moves beyond form or representation to ask, how can art exist? At its core, is the “return of existence”, where forgotten lives re-emerge through art. It sees art as ethical practice and existing together, not just isolated social critique or institution. In this way, it serves as a paradigm shift in the meaning of art today.

My lecture on September 10 at the Egg Gallery’s 4th-anniversary celebrations was attended by artists, writers, intellectuals, and local residents of Yeosu. I discussed the works of Korean Nobel winner Han Kang, and Bengali writers Mahasweta Devi and Ashapurna Devi, exploring how memory, the body, and silence become forms of resistance for women navigating structures of oppression. Drawing on my experiences working with refugees in urban spaces, I reflected on the intersections of literature, social justice, and lived experience, showing how art and storytelling can foster connection across cultures and histories. 

As I moved through Korea, I kept noticing small moments where Indian and Korean histories seemed to echo each other. One of the most striking of these came at the P.S. Centre in Euljiro, right in the middle of Seoul’s metalworking alley. There, I saw Naresh Kumar’s solo exhibition, 'March to March'.

Kumar's work felt like a meditation on desire, identity, struggle, and belonging all at once. Kumar, who was born in 1988 in Patna, Bihar, chooses materials with intention. Mica evokes the dust of the cities he grew up in, indigo recalls the colonial exploitation of cash crops in eastern India, and everyday objects like Daiso items reflect globalisation. Each material carries history, memory, and survival. His work asks questions about endurance, resistance, and home – Patna, Mumbai, Paris, Gwangju, or Seoul – and how we find belonging across different landscapes. 

In the heart of Seoul, the ancient palace walls of the Gyeongbokgung stand quietly beside glass towers, history brushing up against the pulse of modern life. Tourists in rented hanbok snapped selfies under the gates, yet memory remained alive, shaped by perspective.

On my last day in Korea, I was invited by Lecturer Park Hyeri to speak as part of the Architecture and the City guest lecture series at Ewha Woman’s University. For the first time, I addressed an audience of architects and city planners, sharing my experiences of working with refugees. My lecture, titled Justice and the City: Refugees, Children, and Urban Life, explored how cities can include or exclude the most vulnerable among us.

The university’s name, Ewha, derives from the pear blossom, a detail I found quietly lyrical, a reminder of growth and resilience that mirrored the themes of my talk.

One of the clearest lessons I took away from my time in Korea was the famous Korean practice of noonchi, the art of reading a room through subtle gestures, silences, and glances. Some of the most meaningful moments were the smallest – sharing my name, splitting a meal, or talking about art and politics with someone new.

Whether I was walking through a palace or a gallery, listening to a refugee’s story, or chatting in a café, I saw a country constantly balancing tradition and change, ambition and restraint, memory and progress.

Reeti Roy is a writer and cultural commentator whose work explores the intersections of art, history, and social justice. Her upcoming memoir delves into her journey through Korea, weaving personal narrative with broader cultural insights.

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