MMCA releases English VR tour of 'Performative Home' exhibition

An image from the 360-degree virtual reality tour of the exhibition “Performative Home: Architecture for Alternative Living”

The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea has unveiled a virtual reality exhibition tour for “Performative Home: Architecture for Alternative Living," which is currently physically on view at the museum’s Gwacheon venue.

For the VR tour, the actual exhibition space was captured in 360 degrees, and architectural materials such as 3D models and sketches were used.

The 360-degree VR exhibition tour, provided in English and available on the MMCA’s YouTube channel, is the national contemporary art museum’s second production of its kind, following “Korean Embroidery in Modern Times: The Birds Trying to Catch the Sun,” which ran at the museum’s Deoksugung branch until August.

As part of its VR exhibition tour project, the museum plans to release four more VR experiences after the architecture exhibition. Each tour will run for about 10 minutes, allowing viewers to explore the screen interactively, according to the museum.

“We hope the (VR exhibition) project helps promote diverse content about Korean art curated by the museum for global audiences,” said MMCA Director Kim Seong-hee.

An image from the 360-degree VR tour of the exhibition “Performative Home: Architecture for Alternative Living”

The exhibition “Performative Home: Architecture for Alternative Living," curated by Chung Dah-young, leads people to think outside the box about their living environment in Korea, where apartments are the dominant housing type.

More than 58 houses built after 2000 by 30 architectural offices are introduced at the exhibition. During the VR exhibition tour, “Cat-tagonal House” designed by B.U.S architecture in Yongin city, appears with its three-dimensional space. The house was designed to accommodate both humans and animals -- two cats, Mango and Tango, and two people -- better.

The architecture exhibition unfolds around six themes: “The Home as an Architectural Manifesto,” “Reimagining Family Homes,” “The Home as a Social Ground,” “The Home as a Panorama,” “Small Homes, Renovated Homes” and “The Home as Temporary Dwelling.” It runs through Feb. 2, 2025.

Meanwhile, the museum announced Thursday curator Kim In-hye has been appointed to lead the museum's curatorial team. The position had remained vacant for the past two years.