Commissioned by ARKO (Arts Council Korea), the Korean Pavilion is pleased to announce its team and vision for the 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (2026). Curator Binna Choi, helming the project’s concept and organization, has invited Seoul-based Goen Choi and NY-based Hyeree Ro as the two main participating artists to transform the Pavilion into a living monument, or so-called “Liberation Space.” All three collaborators bring a range of distinctive experiences and skills into play, from translocal curation and praxis of the commons to sculptural intervention and performance that rearranges relationships between materiality, body, space and language.
“South Korea recently experienced an abrupt declaration of martial law by our sitting president, followed by over four months of nationwide impeachment rallies despite a deeply divided polity,” says Binna Choi. “In the wake of this event, we may recall the three-year period immediately following Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, a time widely known as ‘Liberation Space,’ and consider its evolution, continuity, and transnational potential amidst today’s geopolitics.”
Artists Goen Choi and Hyeree Ro will incorporate both the architectural form and literal position of the Korea Pavilion within the Giardini as actors immanent to this undertaking, shifting them into new sensual, intellectual and social fields of action, continuous movement and imagination. Conceptualized as both “fortress” and “nest,” the Korean Pavilion will also host multiple additional voices and stories under the auspices of program “fellows” and a larger “network,” expanding this year’s Pavilion into an inclusive structure of ongoing dialogue and connection, care and solidarity.
Binna Choi (b.1977) brings two decades of experience working internationally while sustaining deep connections to Korea’s cultural and socio-political landscape. She has been at the forefront of shaping new institutional models through her directorship of Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons in Utrecht. Her recent curatorial engagement in the biennale context include the 2022 Singapore Biennale, Natasha, the 2016 Gwangju Biennale, What Does Art Do? (The Eighth Climate), and most recently, the 2025 Hawai’i Triennial, ALOHA NÔ.
Goen Choi (b. 1985) works primarily with hard metals often used in domestic infrastructures, creating site-specific sculptural interventions that extend from interiors to rooftops, balconies, and other exterior architectural spaces. Her practice integrates entire sites into a single organic context, traversing the boundaries between inside and outside. Recent projects include the 2nd Frieze Seoul Artist Award (2024), the 7th Changwon Sculpture Biennale (2024), a solo exhibition Cornering at Amado Art Space (2022), and Vivid Cut at P21, Seoul (2021).
Hyeree Ro (b. 1987) stages performances that link objects and bodies through speech, exploring what resists easy definition. Using the interplay of object–body–language, she traces how personal experiences, emotions, memories, places, urban environments, movement, and stories become embodied narratives. Recent projects include a solo exhibition August is the Cruelest at Doosan Gallery, Seoul (2025) and Niro at Canal Projects, New York (2024); and participation in Art Spectrum 2022 at Leeum Museum of Art.